THE 



CENTENAEY 

OP 

AMERICAN METHODISM: 

A SKETCH OF ITS HISTORY, THEOLOGY, PRACTICAL 
SYSTEM, AND SUCCESS. 

PEEPAEED BY OEDEE OF THE CENTEXAEY COMMITTEE 
OF THE GENERAL CONFEEEXCE OF THE 
METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHUECH. 



By ABEL STEVENS, LL.D. 



WITH A STATEMENT OF THE PLAN OF THE CENTENARY CELEBRATION 

OF 1866, 

By JOHN M'CLINTOCK, D.D. 



PUBLISHED BY CARLTON & PORTER, 

200 MULBEBEY-STEEET. 
1865. 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1865, by 

OARLTON & PORTER, 

in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the 
Southern District of New York. 



SOURCE UNKNOWN 

AUG 2 0 1940 



DEDICATORY PBEFACE. 



4»» 

Oliyer Hott, Esq. 

My Dear Sir: — Aside from our personal friendship and those dis- 
tinguished services which have connected your name with some of the 
most important interests of the Church, I deem it proper to submit 
this work to you as the author of the resolution, in the Cleveland 
meeting of the Centenary Committee, appointing me to "prepare a 
centenary volume, setting forth such facts and showings as should 
properly come within the scope of such a work;" and the Rev. Dr. 
M'CHntock, "to co-operate" with me "by adding a chapter embody- 
ing the action of the Centenary Committee, and reflecting the spirit 
which pervaded its discussions." 

The Committee were doubtless determined, in their choice of a 
writer of the proposed book, by the fact that it has been my task foi 
a number of years to prepare for the denomination a "History of thfe 
Religious Movement of the Eighteenth Century, called Methodism," 
etc., and "The History of the Methodist Episcopal Church in the 
United States of America." In the familiarity with the historical 
facts of Methodism which these writings have afforded me, I have 
found, however, my chief difficulty in preparing the present volume. 
There is so much that is heroic, and even romantic, in the early his- 
tory of Methodism, that a writer, in whose mind such data are fresh 
and vivid, must be perplexed to know w^here to stop, what to record, 
or, at least, what to omit. Unless he would risk the design of his 
work, by its magnitude and consequent high price, he must, with 
whatever reluctance, omit names sacredly memorable, and incidents 
as marvelous as any in modern religious history. I have been able to 
relieve myself from this embarrassment at last only by binding myself 
rigidly to the practical design of the volume : to the preparation of 
such a brief yet comprehensive exhibit of Methodism as might most 
directly promote the purposes of the Centenary Celebration, by show- 
ing the true character and claims of the Church, and by setting them 



4 



PEEFACE. 



forth in such manner that they shall be intelligible to the most unin- 
formed reader. As stated in the Introduction, I have also avoided, as 
much as possible, except in the last chapter of the volume, any merely 
didactic treatment of its subjects, but have studied to give it through- 
out popular attraction and effect, by historical facts and style. The 
first three chapters, however, are alone in purely narrative or chrono- 
logical form, and are such only so far as the founding of Methodism 
in England and America is concerned, or as they can best answer 
historically the question, What is Methodism ? by shovdng its evan- 
gehcal stand-point. This chronological narrative could not be further 
extended without making the work too large ; and it must be borne in 
mind that it is the founding of Methodism that is to be celebrated in 
the Centenary Jubilee. Its subsequent results are classified and em- 
bodied in other chapters. It would seem desirable that the good and, 
in many instances, truly great men who have built up the denomina- 
tion during its first century, should have some record in the volume, 
but this is obviously impossible ; they have their place in its history, 
but this is not its history. 

I indulge the hope that you, and other readers, who have followed 
me through my larger works on Methodism, will not find this more 
compendious and more classified review of its first century in America 
uninteresting, though it must necessarily be, to a great extent, a repeti- 
tion of my former data, and in some instances, with but slight modifi- 
cations of style. The similar books, officially published by different 
\)ranches of the denomination at its General Centenary in 1839, have 
been retained as manuals in their literature. I have endeavored to 
secure to the present volume the same advantage, by so presenting 
the history and official statistics of the various institutions and inter- 
ests of the Church as to make the book a permanent standard for 
reference, affording, in the most convenient form, the chief data which 
may be needed by writers, preachers, or others, respecting its his- 
tory, theology, discipline, literature, education, missions, Sunday- 
schools, etc. 

I shall always consider it no small honor to have co-operated, how- 
ever slightly, with you and your colleagues of the Centenary Com- 
mittee in the onerous labors with which you have been preparing the 
Church for its approaching festival, an occasion which I doubt not 
will be rendered forever memorable. 

Eespectfully, 

Abel Stevens. 

Mamaroneck Parsonage, Oct^ 1865. 



CONTENTS. 

limiODUcTiON Page 9 

PAET 1. 

WHAT IS METHODIS:m:?— THE QUESTION" HISTORIC- 
ALLY ANSWERED. 



Pag:e 

CHAPTEE I. 

ITS ORIGrN-, rorXDERS, AXD EARLY 
PROGRESS IX EXGLAXD. 



Its Historical Stand-point. ... 11 
Sketches of John and Charles. . 

Wesley 11 

Susannah ^yesley 11 

Studies and Eeligious Inquiries 

of the Wesley s : 13 

John Wesley's Charities 20 

Sketch of Whitefield 21 

Conversion of the Wesleys 25 

Peter Boehler 31 

Luther on Faith 33 

Beginning of the Methodist Mis- 
sion 38 

Eeligious Condition of England . 43 

Eemarkable Scenes 48 

Lay Preachers 51 

The first Society 52 

Persecutions ' 53 

Whitefield in x\merica 55 

Eesults 57 

CHAPTEE II. 

ORIGEN", rOOvDERS^ AXD PROGRESS IN 
AMERICA. 

The Irish Palatines G4 

Philip Embury 66 

Methodism in Xew York 69 

Barbara Heck 69 

Captain Webb 70 

Outspread of Methodism 75 



Eobert Strawbridge 77 

Early Local Preachers 79 

CHAPTEE m. 

EARLY EVANGELISTS. 

Eobert Williams 83 

John King 87 

Boardman and Pilmoor 89 

Wright and Asbury 90 

Asbury's Character 91 

Eankin and Shadford 95 

Other Preachers 96 

The Eevolutionary War 96 

CHAPTEE IV. 

RAPID PROGRESS. 

Methodism in the West 102 

Episcopal Organization 102 

Methodism in New England. . 103 

In Canada 103 

Its Native Muiistry 104 

Subsequent Progress 105 

Eemarkable Statistics 106 

Comparative Strength in differ- 
ent parts of the Country 107 

CHAPTEE Y. 

ITS PRACTICAL SYSTEM. 

"The United Society'* 109 

The " Class Meeting " 109 

"General Pules" 109 

Church Officers 110 

Circuits, Districts, Conferences 111 



6 



CONTENTS. 



Page 

Vigor of its System 113 

Its Origin and Development. . 114 
Lay Eejgresentation , . 120 

CHAPTER VI. 

ITS DOOTBIK-AL SYSTEM, 

Articles of Eeligion.. 125 

xlrminianism 127 



Papre 

Witness of the Spirit 128 

Christian Perfection 130 

Catholicity of Methodism 134 

Examples of Wesley's Liber- 
ality 139 

Scientific Theology 140 

Watson and Warren 140 

Eelative Position of Methodist 
Theology 140 



PAET II. 



WHAT HAS METHODISM ACHIEVED ENTITLING IT TO 
THE PPvOPOSED OOMMEMOPvATION? 



CHAPTER I. 

ITS SPECIAL ADAPTATION AND USE- 
FULNESS TO THE COUNTRY. 

Great Growth of Population. . . 147 
The Methodist Itinerancy nec- 
essary to meet the Moral 

Wants of the Country 148 

Its Eemarkable Results 150 

Its Eelative Success 152 

CHAPTEE II. 

ITS LABORS IN THE DIFFUSION OF LIT- 
ERATURE. 

Wesley's Literary Services 155 

Origin of the Methodist Book 

Concern 157 

Its History., 157 

Its present Magnitude 160 

Its IJsefulness 161 

CHAPTEE III. 

ITS EDUCATIONAL LABORS. 

First Methodist School 163 

Wesleyan Educational Efforts. 164 

Theological Schools 165 

Early Educational Efforts in 

America 165 

Asbur3^ misrepresented 166 

History of Education in the 

Church 167 

Results — Statistics 170 

CHAPTEE IV. 

ITS SUNDAY-SCHOOL ENTERPRISE. 

Early Methodism and Simday- 
Schools.... 171 



Wesley adopts the Institution . 172 
Asbury introduces it into 

America 173 

History of the Methodist Sun- 
day-School Union 175 

Its great Success 176 

Eesults— Statistics 176 

CHAPTEE V. 

ITS MISSIONARY LABORS. 

Early Methodism and Missions 180 

Bishop Coke and Missions 181 

Great Success 184 

History of Methodist Mission- 
ary Society 187 

Foreign Missions 191 

German Methodism 196 

Present Condition of Methodist 

Missions 198 

Eesults — Statistics 198 

CHAPTEE VI. 

ITS LOYALTY AND PATRIOTIC SERV- 
ICES. 

Wesley and the Eevolution. . . 201 

His change of Opinion 201 

His Letter to British Cabinet 

Ministers ■ 201 

Methodist E. Church first rec- 
ognizes the New Government 203 
Important change of its Article 203 
Methodism asserts the National 

Sovereignty 203 

Address to Washington 205 

HisEeply 207 

The Antislavery Controversy. . 208 



CONTENTS. 



7 



Page 

Kew York East Conference 209 

Services in the War 209 

President Lincoln's Testimony 210 

CHAPTEE YH. 

Great Numerical Growth 213 

Statistics of the M. E. Church. 213 

Membership and Ministry 213 

Educational Institutions 213 



Page 



Church Property 213 

Book Concern 214 

Sunday-School Union 214 

Missions 214 

Methodist Episcopal Church 

South 214 

Aggregate 215 

Other Methodist Bodies 215 

General Aggregate 216 

Bishop Janes on the Actual 

State of Methodism 217 



PAET III. 

ITS OAPABILITIES AKD EESPO^TSIBILITIES FOB THE 
FUTURE. 



Its Wealth 225 

Demands upon it 225 

Prospective Population of the 

Country 226 

Area of the Kepublic 229 

Educational Eesponsibilities . . 230 
Proportion of Juvenile Popula- 
tion 230 

Ministerial Education 232 



Church Architecture 233 

Eeligious Art 234 

Eeunion of ^^tethodist Bodies. 236 

Church Care of its Children. . 238 

Significant Statistics 238 

Pastoral Care of Children 239 

Spiritual Mission of Method- 
ism . 241 

The Centenary Memorial 242 



CENTENARY 



OF 

AMERICAN METHODISM. 



INTRODUCTION. 

The American Metliodists propose to celebrate, in 
the year 1866, the completion of the first great cycle 
of their history, its centenary jubilee. From Maine 
to California, from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico, 
they will assemble in their churches for religious 
ceremonies and pecuniary ofierings. What enti- 
tles Methodism to this solemn, this national com- 
memoration ? 

In answering this question it is proposed to show : 

First, "What is Methodism. 

Second, What it has achieved that commends it to 
such general and grateful recognition. 

Third, What are its capabilities for the future, and 
the consequent responsibilities of its people. 

It is not designed to discuss these propositions in 



10 



INTBODUCTIOK. 



the way of dissertation, but, as far as possible, in 
a historical form such as shall present the general 
scope of Methodism, as a historical, a doctrinal, 
and a practical system; so that the inquirer, who 
may have heretofore given it no studious attention, 
shall be able to appreciate its real character and 
claims. 



PART L 



WHAT IS METHODISM ? 



CHAPTEE I. 

ITS ORIGIK5 FOUNDERS, AJN^D EARLY PROGRESS IN* 
ENGLAND. 

Metb:odis]M has been described as revival 
Chiircli in its spirit, a missionary Churcli in its 
organization ; " a resuscitation of the spiritual life 
and practical aims of primitive Christianity. This 
is its genuine standpoint, the only one from which 
its history and its theological and practical systems 
can be interpreted. It is implied not only in the 
characteristic features of its progress, doctrines, and 
economy, but in the individual history of its founders 
and other principal agents. 

John Wesley, its chief apostle and legislator, was 
born June 14, 1Y03, in the Epworth Eectory, Lin- 
colnshire, England. Charles Wesley, one of its 
ablest preachers, and the author of its Psalmody, 
now its virtual liturgy throughout the world, was 
born there, December 18, 1708. Susanna Wesley, 
their mother, who has been called " the real found- 



12 CENTEKARY OF AMEBIC AN METHODISM. 

ress of Methodism," was distingnislied by her rare 
intellect, her piety, and her domestic management. 
Her system of household education has been the 
wonder, if not the admiration, of most historical 
wTiters on Methodism. It was her custom to retire 
with each of her children once a week, for religious 
conversation and prayer. She has recorded that, on 
these occasions of devout self-recollection, she felt 
a peculiar solicitude for her most celebrated child. 
When not yet seven years old he had providentially 
been saved from a terrible death. The rectory was 
burned down at night ; all its inmates, except John, 
had escaped, but he was sleeping in a room which 
the flames rendered inaccessible. The rector and his 
family knelt on the ground, in the light of their 
burning home, and committed the soul of the child 
to God, when suddenly he appeared at the window of 
his chamber. A peasant, mounting on the shoulders 
of another, rescued him at the instant that the roof 
fell in ; two minutes of delay would have deprived 
the history of the world of the name and achieve- 
ments of its most remarkable modern religious char- 
acter. "I do intend," said his grateful mother, in 
one of the recorded meditations of her weekly retire- 
ment and prayer with him, "I do intend to be 
more particularly careful of the soul of this child 
that thou hast so mercifully provided for, than 
ever I have been, that I may do my endeavor to 



KAELY PROGKESS IX EXGLA^s'D. 



13 



instill into his mind the principles of true religion 
and virtue. Lord, give me grace to do it sincerely 
and prudently, and bless my attempt with good 
success." 

In advanced life John "Wesley recorded the admira- 
tion vrith which he recalled this faithful mother ; the 
skill with which she managed, with little assistance, 
and in no little poverty, the daily affairs of her family, 
comprising thirteen children, all of whom, that at- 
tained responsible years, became devoted Christians, 
and died in the Lord ; " her household school, 
commenced daily with singing and prayer, and con- 
ducted solely by herself with academic regularity; 
her devotion as family priestess to religious duties ; 
her daily evening hour of retired prayer and con- 
verse with her children severally; the prudence 
and zeal with which she conducted in the absence 
of her husband a sort of Sunday public worship, 
in the rectory, for the villagers as well as her 
family. 

It was inevitable that such a training should have 
impressed, for life, the minds of such men as the two 
Wesleys. They bore from the rectory tendencies 
which the world could never reverse. John left the 
home for the Charterhouse School, London, when 
eleven years old, and entered Oxford University in 
his seventeenth year. Charles went to the Westmin- 
ster school when about eight years of age, and in due 



14 CENTEKARY OF AMERICAK METHODISM. 

time joined his brotlier at Oxford. Their vigilant 
mother maintained a frequent correspondence with 
them. " ITow," she wrote, " in good earnest, resolve 
to make religion the business of your life ; for, after 
all, that is the one thing that, strictly speaking, is 
necessary. All things besides are comparatively 
little to the purposes of life. I heartily wish you 
would now enter upon a strict examination of your- 
self, that you may know whether you have a reason- 
able hope of salvation by Jesus Christ. If you have, 
the satisfaction of knowing it will abundantly reward 
your pains ; if you have not, you will find a more 
reasonable occasion for tears than can be met with 
in any tragedy." And now the influence of the 
saintly example and instructions of this extraordinary 
woman was made manifest, not only in the upright- 
ness of the general moral conduct of her sons, and 
their success in study and collegiate honors, but in 
their extraordinary spirit of religious inquiry and 
devotion. John was the first to reveal this effect; 
but his conversations with his brother soon awoke a 
responsive sympathy in the heart of the latter. They 
perceived that the religious life is the supreme in- 
terest of man, that all else should be subordinated to 
this, and that without it human life must be a failure, 
the saddest of problems, nay, a mixed farce and 
tragedy. They perceived further, not in uncharita- 
bleness, but deep self-abasement, that the habitual 



EARLY PROGRESS ENGLAND. 15 

Christian life of their country, as well as of them- 
selves, was generally, if not universally, incompatible 
with the standard of spiritual life prescribed by 
Christianity and exemplified by the original Church. 
In fine, the very genius of Methodism, as not an 
ecclesiastical, nor a theological, but a vital and prac- 
tical system, was foretokened in the moral history of 
these young and earnest inquirers. 

John gave himself to the best religious reading he 
could command. Three authors became now his 
habitual companions, next to his Greek Testament. 
Bishop Taylor's " Holy Living and Dying," Kempis's 
" Imitation," and Law's " Serious Call " and 
" Christian Perfection," agreed with those convic- 
tions of the thoroughness and sanctity of the Chris- 
tian life, which had struck into his inmost con- 
sciousness ; but these three most remarkable writers, 
perhaps, since the apostolic age, on Spiritual Chris- 
tianity, failed in an essential point. They delineated 
accurately a genuine spiritual life, but did not 
show the requisite means of its attainment. " They 
preserve a complete silence," says a good authority, 
"respecting the faith by which the conscience is 
purged from dead works, and the very thoughts of 
the heart are made pure, and therefore leave the 
reader in the hopeless attempt to practice Christian 
holiness while he is under the power of sin. He is 
required to love God with all his heart, but he 



16 CENTENAEY OF AMERICAN METHODISM. 

receives no information concerning the manner in 
wliicli lie is to be saved from tlie condemnation to 
which he is liable on account of his past sins, and • 
the carnal mind which is enmity against God." In 
fine, the great Pauline doctrine of " Justification by 
Faith/' which was the most potential truth of prim- 
itive Christianity, and by which Luther restored 
apostolic life to the Church, was generally inert, if 
not practically ignored, in the English Church of the 
day. The "Wesleys were now, and for some years, 
feeling after it as in the dark ; they were to find it at 
last, find it by the help of Luther, its great restorer, 
and with it begin the " Eeligious movement of the 
eighteenth century, called Methodism." 

The history of their inner life, at this time, is 
an exceedingly interesting study, and is import- 
ant as a preliminary and an exponent of their 
subsequent public life as founders of Methodism. 
Bishop Taylor's teachings respecting purity of mo- 
tive, deeply impressed the mind of John Wesley. 
" Instantly," he says, " I resolved to dedicate all my 
life to God, all my thoughts and words and actions, 
being thoroughly convinced that there is no medium ; 
that not only a part but the whole must be a sacrifice 
to God or to myself, that is, in effect, to the devil." 
This became the characteristic maxim of his whole 
subsequent life. He could not accept some of Tay- 
lor's sentiments, and his dissent led him more defini- 



EARLY PROGRESS IX EXGLA2s^D. 



17 



tively to doctrines which were to be vital in the 
theology of Methodism. The bishop, like most re- 
^igiolls teachers of his day, denied that the Christian 
could usually be sure of his acceptance with God. 
AYesley replied : "If we dwell in Christ and Christ 
in us, which he will not do unless we are regenerate, 
certainly we must be sensible of it. If we can never 
have any certainty of our being in a state of salva- 
tion, good reason it is that every moment should be 
spent, not in joy, but in fear and trembling; and 
then, undoubtedly, in this life we are of all men 
most miserable. God deliver us from such a fearful 
expectation ! Humility is, undoubtedly, necessary 
to salvation ; and if all these things are essential to 
humility, who can be humble, who can be saved ? 
That we can never be so certain of the pardon of our 
sins as to be assured they will never rise up against 
us, I firmly believe. We know that they will infalli- 
bly do so, if we apostatize ; and I am not satisfied 
. what evidence there can be of our final perseverance, 
till we have finished our course. But I am persuaded 
we may know if we are now in a. state of salvation, 
since that is expressly promised in the Holy Scrijv 
I tures to our sincere endeavors, and we are surely 
able to judge of our own sincerity." Here was not 
only his later doctrine of the " "Witness of the Spirit," 
but a clear dissent from the Calvinistic tenet of 

''final perseverance." His proclivity to Arminian- 

2 



18 CENTENAEY OF AMERICAN METHODISM. 

ism became quite decided about this time. "As I 
understand faith," he wrote, " to be an assent to any 
truth upon rational grounds, I do not think it possi- * 
ble, without perjury, to swear I believe anything 
unless I have reasonable grounds for my persuasion. 
'Now that which contradicts reason cannot be said to 
stand upon reasonable grounds ; and such, undoubt- 
edly, is every proposition which is incompatible with 
the divine justice or mercy. What, then, shall I say 
of predestination ? If it was inevitably decreed from 
eternity that a determinate part of mankind should 
be saved, and none besides, then a vast majority of 
the world were only born to eternal death, without 
so much as a possibility of avoiding it. How is this 
consistent with either the divine justice or mercy? 
Is it merciful to ordain a creature to everlasting 
misery ? Is it just to punish a man for crimes which 
he could not but commit ? That God should be the 
author of sin and injustice, which must, I think, be 
the consequence of maintaining this opinion, is 
a contradiction to the clearest ideas we have of 
the divine nature and perfections." His mother 
confirmed him in these views, and expressed her 
abhorrence of the Calvinistic theology. God's pre- 
science, she argued, is no more the effective cause 
of the loss of the wicked than our foreknowledge 
of the rising of to-morrow's sun is the cause of 
its rising. She prudently advised, however, absti- 



EAKLY PROGEESS I:N' EXGLAXD. 



19 



nence from these speculations as "studies whicli 
tended more to confound than to inform the under- 
standing." 

He visited his father's parish at Epworth, and in 
its rural retirement became more than ever infected 
with the mysticism of Kempis and Law. He was 
inclined to the recluse life of the Catholic saints ; it 
was, he saj^s, " the decided temper of my soul." He 
proposed to himself a secluded school in the Yorkshire 
Dales, but his vigilant mother checked him, predict- 
ing that God would open for him a more important 
career in the world. He made a journey of some 
miles to converse with " a serious man," of whom he 
had heard. Sir," said this man, as the frank and 
anxious inquirer stood before him, "you wish to 
serve God and go to heaven, but remember you can- 
not serve him alone ; you must, therefore, find com- 
panions, or make them ; the Bible knows nothing of 
solitary religion." He returned to Oxford and found 
them ; for his brother, led by his influence, had 
gathered about him a group of devoted students, 
and the " Holy Club " was already organized. 
Its members were soon derisively called "Method- 
ists," for the systematic regularity of their lives, 
and especially of their religious observances. John 
immediately became their leader by the tacit recog- 
nition of his superior capacity and character. They 
studied together the Greek Scriptures, the classics, 



20 CENTENARY OF AMERICAN METHODISM. 

and theology ; tliey fasted twice a week, and received 
the Lord's supper every Sunday. "Wesley drew up 
for them a severe system of self-examination, worthy 
of a monastic order. They devoted certain hours to 
the instruction of poor children, the visitation of the 
sick and prisoners. Wesley himself now began that 
course of practical charity to the poor which con- 
tinued to be one of the distinctions of his remarkable 
life. In a printed sermon he says : " When I was at 
Oxford, in a cold winter's day, a young maid (one of 
those we kept at school) called upon me. I said, 
' You seem half starved. Have you nothing to cover 
you but this thin linen gown ? ' She said, ' Sir, this 
is all I have.' I put my hand in my pocket, but 
found I had scarce any money left, having paid away 
what I had. It immediately struck me, 'Will thy 
Master say. Well done^ good and faithf ul steward 'I 
Thou hast adorned thy walls with the money which 
might have screened this poor creature from the 
cold! O justice! O mercy! Are not these pic- 
tures the blood of this poor maid ? See thy expens- 
ive apparel in the same light; thy gown, hat, head- 
dress ! Everything about thee which cost more than 
Christian duty required thee to lay out is the blood 
of the poor ! O be wise for the time to come ! Be 
more merciful ! more faithful to God and man ! more 
abundantly adorned with good works ! ' " 
When his income from his college fellowship was 



EARLY PEOGRESS IN ENGLAND. 



21 



but £30 a year he gave away £2 ; when it was £60 lie 
still confined his expenses to £28, and gave away 
£32 ; when it reached £120 he kept himself to his old 
allowance, and gave away £92. Besides giving him- 
self wholly to the public good, and laboring as devot- 
edly as any other man of modern times for the moral 
welfare of the poor, he gave away, it is computed, a 
hundred and fifty thousand dollars, the proceeds of 
his publications, etc. The last insertion in his pri- 
vate journal, written with a trembling hand, reads 
thus : " For upward of eighty-six years I have kept 
my accounts exactly. I will not attempt it any 
longer, being satisfied with the continual conviction 
that I save all I can and give all I can ; that is, all I 
have." 

With such rigor did these earnest young men 
seek self-purification and peace of soul. They 
were treated with contempt by their fellow-col- 
legians, especially as they marched together to their 
weekly sacrament ; but their number increased, and 
the germ of the future and world-wide growth of 
Methodism was already planted within the learned 
pale of Oxford. 

In 1735 a young man joined them, whose fame, as 
an apostle, was to fill the English realm in both hemi- 
spheres. He was born in Gloucester, in 1Y14, and 
spent his early life in poverty, ignorance, and vice. 
"WJhen about fifteen years old he became a " common 



22 CENTENARY OF AMERICAN METHODISM. 

drawer " in an inn at Bristol, (whicli was kept by his 
motlier,) wearing, as lie says, his " bine apron and his 
snuffers," and " washing and cleaning rooms.'' " If I 
trace myself," he adds, "from my cradle to my man- 
hood, I can see nothing in me but a fitness to be 
damned ; and if the Almighty had not prevented 
me by his grace, I had now either been sitting in 
darkness, and in the shadow of death, or condemned, 
as the due reward of my crimes, to be forever lifting 
up my eyes in torments." Yet he was a youth of the 
largest soul and the most susceptible moral sensibili- 
ties. Religious books fell into his hands ; he sought 
improvement both of heart and head ; he made his 
way to Oxford, where he was now struggling for his 
education in the humble condition of a servitor, or 
"poor student." Kempis and AUeine's "Alarm" 
here deepened his religious solicitude, and, groping 
in the thick spiritual darkness which surrounded him 
amid so much intellectual light, he fell into pitiable 
anguish and not a few superstitious extravagances. 
His mental struggles seemed at times to impair his 
faculties ; his memory failed ; he describes himself as 
feeling like a person bound in iron armor ; he chose 
the poorest food that he could subsist on, and the 
meanest raiment, " dirty shoes, patched garments, 
and coarse gloves," for the mortification of his baffled 
soul. He almost daily suffered some insult from his 
fellow-students. When he knelt in prayer he felt, a 



•EARLY PROGRESS IN ENGLAND. 



23 



mysterious and insupportable " pressure on soul and 
body," and often spent hours in these intercessory 
agonies while the sweat dripped down his person. 
" God only knows," he says, " how many nights I 
have lain upon my bed groaning under what I felt. 
"Whole days and weeks have I spent in lying pros- 
trate on the ground, in silent or vocal prayer." For 
forty days, during Lent, he tasted nothing but coarse 
bread and sage tea, except on Satui'days and Sun- 
daj^s. He resorted to solitary places seeking rest 
and finding none ; he spent the hours of night pray- 
ing under the trees, and trembling with cold and 
mental anguish, till the bell of the college called him 
to his chamber, where the remaining hours, till dawn, 
were passed in tears and prayers. Of course his 
health failed under these error-s ; a long sickness dis- 
abled him to pursue them, and in his helpless prostra- 
tion he was led to apprehend clearly the doctrine of 
justification by faith. " God," he says, " was pleased 
at length to remove the heavy load, to enable me to 
lay hold on the cross by a living faith, and by giving 
me the spirit of adoption to seal me, as I humbly 
hope, even to the day of everlasting redemption. 
O ! with what joy, joy unspeakable, even joy that 
was full of glory, was my soul filled, when the weight 
of sin went off", and an abiding sense of the par- 
doning love of God, and a full assurance of faith, 
broke in upon my disconsolate souH Surely it 



24 CEKTEKARY OF AMERICAN METHODISM. 



was the day of my espousals, a day to be had in ever- 
lasting remembrance. At first my joys were like a 
spring tide, and, as it were, overflowed the banks; 
go where I would I could not avoid the singing of 
psalms almost aloud ; afterward they became more 
settled, and blessed be God, saving a few casual 
intervals, have abode and increased in my soul ever 
since." 

Such was George Whitefield's initiation into the 
" Holy Club," the Methodistic band at Oxford. He 
was to pioneer their public career in England and 
all along the British colonies of North America, the 
most eloquent, the most flaming preacher that the 
Christian Church has known since its apostolic age ; 
a man whose native genius for oratory, heightened by 
saintly piety, was to shake with an unprecedented sen- 
sation, and awaken, as in a moral resurrection, nearly 
the whole British empire ; to extort unwonted admi- 
ration, and compliments from Hume, Bolingbroke, 
Garrick, "Walpole, and Chesterfield ; to attract in his 
private ministrations at the mansion of the Countess 
of Huntington, the nobility of the Court, while it 
swept like a hurricane over throngs, ten, twenty, 
forty thousand strong, on the hillsides, and in the 
market-places of England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland, 
and North America, startling them to tears, sobs, and 
irrepressible cries of anguish and penitence. He 
seems indeed the providential man for the approach- 



EARLY PROGRESS IN" ENGLAND. 25 

ing religious crisis. His moral struggles, eyen the 
superstitious rigors which, came so near destroying 
him, prepared him to meet and counsel similar cases, 
in the 'general religious agitation which was about to 
set in, to appreciate and assert the true Christian life 
as " the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free." 
With a heart incandescent with divine fire, palpitating 
with those generous sympathies that render all the 
world kin and give to the orator irresistible control 
of the popular mind, he combined an imagination as 
sublime as that of the Hebraic prophets, and the most 
extraordinary oratorical aptitudes of voice and gesture. 
Garrick said he could make ^ his hearers weep or 
shout with exultation, merely by his varied pro- 
nunciation of the word Mesopotamia ; Hume said 
he would go twenty miles to hear him ; Chesterfield 
opened for him his own chapel at Bretby Hall, and 
theatrical actors resorted to his preaching to study 
the secret of his unrivaled power. A peasant hearer 
best characterized perhaps that indescribable power 
when he declared that Whitefield " preached like a 
lion." 

The Wesleys had a longer preparatory moral strug- 
gle. Failing to find rest to their souls in their re- 
ligious observances and painful self-discipline at 
Oxford, they resolved to seek it in entire self-sacrifice 
as missionaries in the ends of the earth. They went 
in 1735 to Georgia, to preach to the Indians and the 



26 CEOTEKARY OF AMERICAN METHODISM. 



colonists of Oglethorpe. On their passage they found 
that their faith could not sustain them in the perils of 
storms ; though their Moravian fellow-passengers — 
humble peasants and artisans — sang hymns of hope 
and joy in the expectation of sudden death. John 
Wesley conversed with them, and saw clearly that 
he had not yet attained similar piety. On reaching 
Georgia he was hospitably received by its little 
Moravian community ; Spangenberg, one of their 
pastors, put to him a searching question : " Does the 
Spirit of God bear witness with your spirit that you 
are a child of God ?" "Wesley was arrested by the 
inquiry and knew not how to answer it. " Do you 
know Jesus Christ ?" continued Spangenberg. " I 
know he is the Saviour of the wdrld," responded 
Wesley. " True," replied Spangenberg, " but do you 
know that he has saved youT^ "I hope he has 
died to save me," rejoined Wesley. Spangenberg only 
added, " Do you know yourself?" " I do," answered 
Wesley, " but I fear," he writes, they were mere 
words." He lodged with these devout men, and was 
much impressed with the singular simplicity and 
purity of their daily life. He witnessed with admi- 
ration their ecclesiastical counsels, the election and 
ordination of a bishop, and writes that as he sat in 
their little but dignified synod, he forgot the seven- 
teen centuries which had passed since the days 
of the apostles, and seemed to be in one of those 



EAELY PKOGRESS IN ENGLAXD. 27 



assemblies where form and state were unknown, but 
where Paul the tentmaker, and Peter the fisher- 
man, presided with the demonstration of the spirit 
and of power. 

Yet even here, amid the pure light of the primitive 
faith, which these good men had kindled in the 
wilderness, ''he comprehended it not," but sought 
peace to his troubled soul in ascetic self-denial and the 
"merit of works." He read daily prayers at five 
o'clock in the morning, preached and administered the 
communion at eleven, and read the evening service 
at three. He refused all food but bread and water, 
slept on the ground, taught the children in a school, 
and went barefooted that he might encourage his poor 
scholars. He was severe to others as well as to him- 
self; his rigors broke down the patience of the people, 
and he at last retreated from the field discomfited and 
in despair. His brother had failed in a similar man- 
ner, and had returned to England. John followed 
him about fifteen months later. As he came in sight 
of Land's End, England, he wrote in his journal : 
" I went to America to convert the Indians, but O ! 
who shall convert me? Who, what is he that w,ill 
1^ deliver me from this evil heart of unbelief? I have 
a fair summer religion ; I can talk well, nay, and 
believe myself, while no danger is near ; but let death 
look me in the face and my spirit is troubled, nor 
can I say, to die is gain. I think verily, if the Gos- 



28 CENTENARY OF AMERICAN METHODISM. 

pel be true, I am safe ; for I not only have given and 
do give all my goods to feed the poor — I not only 
give my body to be burned, drowned, or whatever 
else God shall appoint for me, but I follow after 
charity — though not as I ought, yet as I can — if haply 
I may attain it. I now believe the Gospel true. I 
show my faith by my works, by staking my all upon 
it. I would do so again and again a thousand times, 
if the choice were still to make. Whoever sees me, 
sees I would be a Christian. Therefore are my ways 
not like other men's ways; therefore I have been, I 
am, I am content to be, a by-word, a proverb of re- 
proach. But in a storm I think. What if the Gospel 
be not true ? Then thou art of all men most foolish. 
For what hast thou given thy goods, thy ease, thy 
friends, thy reputation, thy country, thy life ? For 
what art thou wandering over the face of the earth ? 
a dream ? a cunningly-devised fable ? O ! who will 
deliver me from this fear of death ? What shall I 
do? Where shall I fly from it? Should I fight 
against it by thinking, or by not thinking of it ? A 
wise man advised me some time since, ' Be still, and 
go on.' Perhaps this is the best ; to look upon it as 
my cross ; when it comes to let it humble me, and ^ 
quicken all my good resolutions, especially that of 
praying without ceasing ; and at other times to take 
no thought about it, but quietly to go on in the work 
of the Lord." On the 1st of February, 1738, he was 



EARLY PROGRESS IN ENGLAND. 



29 



again in England, and writing in his diary : " This, 
then, have I learned in the ends of the earth — that I 
' am fallen short of the glory of God that my whole 
heart is ' altogether corrupt and abominable,' and, 
consequently, my whole life — seeing it cannot be that 
an ' evil tree ' should ' bring forth good fruit ; ' tliat, 
^ alienated' as I am from 'the life of God,' I am a 
' child of wrath,' an heir of hell ; that my own works, 
my own sufferings, my own righteousness, are so far 
from reconciling me to an offended God, so far from 
making any atonement for the least of those sins 
which ' are more in number than the hairs of my 
head,' that the most specious of them need an atone- 
*ment themselves, or they cannot abide his righteous 
judgment ; that ' having the sentence of death ' in 
my heart, and having nothing in or of myself to 
plead, I have no hope but that of being justified 
freely, ' through the redemption that is in Jesus 
I have no hope, but that if I seek, I shall find Christ, 
and ' be found in him, not having my own righteous- 
ness, but that which is through the faith of Christ, 
the righteousness which is of God by faith.' " 

Again he writes, " It is now two years and almost 
four months since I left my native country, in order 
to teach the Georgian Indians the nature of Chris- 
tianity. But what have I learned myself, meantime ? 
"Why, what I the least of all suspected, that I, who 
went to America to convert others, was never myself 



30 CENTENARY OF AMERICAN METHODISM. 

converted to God. / am not mad^ though I thus 
speak, but I sjpeak the words of truth and soherness, 
if, haply, some of those who still dream may awake, 
and see that as I am so are they.'' Were they read in 
philosophy? he continues with eloquent earnestness, 
and in language which would cover boastfulness itself 
with shame ; were they read in philosopl^^ ? so was 
he. In ancient or modern tongues ? he was also. 
"Were they versed in the science of divinity? he too 
had studied it many years. Could they talk fluently 
upon spiritual things ? the very same could he do. 
Were they plenteous in alms ? behold, he gave all his 
goods to feed the poor. Did they give of their labor 
as well as their substance? he had labored more^ 
abundantly. Were they willing to suffer for their 
brethren? he had thrown away his friends, reputa- 
tion, ease, country ; he had put his life in his hands, 
wandering into strange lands ; he had given his body 
to be devoured by the deep, parched up with heat, 
consumed by toil and weariness, or whatsoever God 
should please to bring upon him. But, he continues, 
does all this, be it more or less it matters not, make 
him acceptable to God ? Does all he ever did, or can, 
Jcnow, say^ give^ do^ or suffer ^]vi^t\ij him in His sight ? 
If the oracles of God are true, if we are still to abide by 
the law and testiraony^ all these things, though when 
ennobled by faith in Christ they are holy, and just, and 
good, yet without it are dung and dross. He refuses 



EARLY PROGRESS IN ENGLAND. 



31 



to be comforted by ambiguous hopes. " If," he adds, 
" it be said that I have faith, for many such things 
have I heard from many miserable comforters, I 
answer, so have the devils a sort of faith ; but still 
they are strangers to the covenant of promise. The 
faith I want is a sure trust and confidence in God, 
that, through the merits of Christ, my sins are for- 
given, and I reconciled to the favor of God." 

Methodism is indebted to Moravianism for not only 
some of the most important features of its moral dis- 
cipline, bnt for the personal " conversion " of both 
the Wesleys. On returning to London they found 
representatives of that community conducting certain 
social religious assemblies, which met weekly. To 
these they resorted, especially to one held in Fetter 
Lane, for they found there a better exposition of 
Christianity than at St. Paul's or Westminster Abbey, 
more responsive at least to those religious solicitudes 
which were quickening their souls into regenerated 
life. Peter Bohler, afterward a Moravian bishop, 
became now the daily companion and counselor of 
the two inquirers. Charles Wesley was the first to 
emerge, under his guidance, out of the mists which 
had so long hung about them, into the true light and 
peace of the Gospel, but not without much hesi- 
tancy, and certain theological fallacies which would 
seem incredible to the better instruction which 
Methodism has afforded to our age. He was dan* 



32 CENTENARY OF AMERICAN METHODISM. 

gerously ill, and Boliler came to sympathize with 
him. After praying at his bedside, the good Moravian 
took his hand and asked, " Do you hope to be saved ?" 
" I answered, Yes." " For what reason do yon hope 
to be saved ?" Because I have used my best endeav- 
ors to serve God." He shook his head and said no 
more. I thought him very uncharitable, saying in 
my heart, What, are not my endeavors a sufficient 
ground of hope ? Would he rob me of my endeavors ? 
I have nothing else to trust to." Some time after this 
interview, while still uncertain of his life, the great 
truth of justification by faith dawned clearly upon his 
vision, he believed, and "entered into rest." "I 
now," he writes, "found myself at peace with God." 
His brother still cleaves to Bohler, " not losing an 
opportunity of conversing with him." They go to 
Oxford and converse in Latin on divine themes, in 
the University cloisters and adjacent groves. After 
one of these walks, "Wesley records, " By him, in the 
hand of the great God, I was on Sunday [March Sth, 
1738] clearly convinced of unbelief, of the want of 
that faith whereby alone we can be saved." Bohler 
has himself left an account of these interviews, and 
says that Wesley "wept bitterly while I was talking 
upon this subject, and afterward asked me to pray 
with him. lean freely affirm, that he is a poor 
broken-hearted sinner, hungering after a better 
righeousness than that which he has hitherto had^ 



EAELY PROGEESS IX EXGLAXD. 



33 



even the righteousness of Christ. In the evening he 
preached fi^om the words, ' We preach Christ cruci- 
fied/ etc. He had more than four thousand hearers, 
and spoke in such a vray that all were amazed — • 
many souls were awakened." 

On the evening of the 2-ith of May, 1738, Wesley 
attended one of the social religious assemblies of the 
Moravians, where he says " one was reading Luther's 
Preface to the Epistle to the Eomans." It was this 
original protest of the Eeformation, in behalf of the 
doctrine of justification by faith, that led "Wesley into 
the personal experience of that great truth and kin- 
dled it on all the altars of Methodism. The venerable 
document has never been cited by any of the histo- 
rians of the denomination or biographers of Wesley,"^ 
yet it deserves attention not only for its historical con- 
nection with the denomination, but for its clear, bold, 
and genuinely Lutheran statement of the doctrine. 
"Faith alone," it says, "justifies, and it alone fulfills 
the law. For faith, through the merits of Christ, 
obtains the Holy Spirit. This blessed Spirit renews, 
exhilarates, excites, and infiames the heart, so that it 
spontaneously performs what the law requires. And 
then, at length, from the faith thus efficaciously 
worKing and living in the heart, fveelj Jluunt, pro- 
ceed those works which are truly good. The apostle 

* It is inserted in the Appendix of Jackson's Centenary of Wes- 
lejan Methodism."' 

3 



34 CENTEKAKY OF AMERICAN METHODISM. 



wishes to convey this meanirig in the third chapter. 
For after he had, in that chapter, utterly condemned 
the works of the law, and might almost seem, by the 
doctrine of faith, about to destroy and abolish the 
law, he at once anticipates the objection by asserting, 
' We do not destroy the law, but we establish it ; ' 
that is, we teach how the law is really fulfilled by 
believing, or through faith. 

" But true faith is the work of God in us, by which 
we are born again and renewed, through God and the 
Spirit of God, as we are told in John i ; and by which 
the old Adam is slain, and we are completely trans- 
formed pe?' omnia^ in all things ; as the Apostle de- 
clares, ' "We are made new creatures in Christ through 
faith ; ' ubi^ in which new creatures the Holy Spirit 
becomes vita et gitbernatio cordis^ the living and rul- 
ing principle of the heart. But faith is an energy in 
the heart ; at once so efficacious, lively, breathing, and 
powerful, as to be incapable of remaining inactive, 
but bursts forth into operation. I^"either does he who 
has faith, moratur^ demur about the question, whether 
good works have been commanded or not ; but even 
though there were no law, feeling the motions of i 
this living impulse putting forth and exerting itself 
in his heart, he is spontaneously borne onward to \ 
work, and at no time does he cease to perform such i 
actions as are truly pioi)S and Christian. But who- \ 
soever from such a living affection of the heart pro- j 



EAELY PEOGRESS IX EXGLAXD. 



35 



duces no good works, he is still in a state of total 
unbelief, and is a stranger to faith ; as are most of 
those persons who hold long disputes, and give utter- 
ance to much declamation in the schools about faith 
and good works, ^neither understanding what they 
say, nor whereof they affirm.' Faith, then, is a con- 
stant fiducia^ trust in the mercy of God toward us ; 
a trust living and efficaciously working in the heart ; 
by which we cast ourselves entirely on God, and com- 
mit ourselves to him ; by which, certd freti^ ha^dng 
an assured reliance, we feel no hesitation about 
enduring death a thousand times. And this firm 
trust in the mercy of God is tara animosa^ so animat- 
ing, as to cheer, elevate, and excite the heart, and to 
transport it with certain most sweet affections toward 
God, and it animates this heart of the believer in 
such a manner that, firmly relying on God, he feels no 
dread in opposing himself solum^ as a single cham- 
pion, against all creatures. This high and heroical 
feeling, therefore, Jios ingentes anirnos^ this noble 
enlargement of spirit, is injected and effected in the 
heart by the Spirit of God, who is imparted [to the 
believer] through faith. And hence we also obtain 
[the privilege] to be impelled to that which is good, 
by this vital energy in our hearts. TTe also obtain 
such a cheerful propensionem^ inclination, that freely 
and spontaneously we are eager and most ready to 
dOj to suffer, and to endure all things in obedience to 



36 CENTENARY OF AMEBICAN METHODISM, 

a Father and God of sucli great clemency ; who, 
through Christ, has enriched us with such abundant 
treasures of grace, and has almost overwhelmed us 
with such transcendent benefits. It is impossible 
that this eflficacious and vital principle of faith can be 
in any man without continually operating, and pro- 
ducing fruit to God. It is just as impossible for a 
pile of dry fagots to be set on fire without emitting 
flames of light. "Wherefore use watchfulness, iM^ in 
this quarter, so as not to believe the vain imagina- 
tions of thy own mind, and the foolish cogitations 
and trifles of the sophists. For these men possess 
neither heart nor brains : they are mere animals of 
the belly, born only for these solemn banquets of the 
schools. But do thou pray to God, who by his word 
has commanded light to shine out of darkness, that 
he would be pleased to shine into thy heart, and 
create faith within thee ; otherwise thou wilt never 
believe, though thou shouldest spend a thousand 
years in studying to fabricate such cogitations about 
a faith abeady obtained or to be hereafter acquired." 

Such were the passages of Luther which, we may in- \ 
fer fromWesley's allusions, were read when at ^ about ] 
a quarter before nine, while he was describing the }j 
change which God works in the heart through faith in | 
Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed ; I felt I did i 
trust in Christ, Christ alone, for salvation ; and an * \ 
assurance was given me that he had taken away my [ 



EARLY PROGEESS IX EXGLAXD. 37 

sins, even 7rdne^ and saved me from the law of sin 
and death. I began to pray witli all my might for 
those who had in a more especial manner despitefuUy 
used me, and persecnted me. I then testified openly 
to all there what I now first felt in my heart." 

Bohler had jailed for America ; but Wesley's moth- 
er, now residing, a widow, in London, was his faithful 
and most trusted counselor. He read to her a record 
of his new experience ; she emphatically approved it, 
and exclaimed that " she heartily blessed God, who 
had brought him to so just a way of thinking." 
Thus in the thirty-fifth year of his age, after twenty- 
five years, as he tells us, of religious struggles, he 
found peace to his soul, by the clearer apprehension 
of the apostolic doctrine of faith and its relation to 
justification. And now he was prepared to go forth 
on his memorable career, publishing through the 
realm, to all contrite men, the same peace on the 
same condition. The next month he was preaching 
" salvation by faith " before the University of Oxford. 

I have treated, somewhat in detail, this early por- 
tion of the history of Methodism, because it afibrds 
us the true standpoint of the new movement. Its 
origin is to be traced to the Lutheran, not to the Cal- 
vinistic conception of Christianity. It was personal 
spiritual life that its founders sought and obtained, a 
fact that characterizes all its subsequent development. 
The formal organization which it afterward assumed 



38 CENTENAEY OF AMEEICAK METHODISM. 



tends indeed to disgnise this, its essential character ; to 
casual readers of its history, it appears as an ecclesi- 
astical system, as definitive sects, as great hierarchical 
Churches in Europe and America ; but let it be 
repeated that the reproduction of the apostolic spir- 
itual life was its single aim ; and its complicated and 
singularly powerful organization was but an effect 
of this its primary fact or principle, an energetic 
scheme for the propagation of spiritual religion in 
the Churches and throughout the world. 

"What was the rise of Methodism?" asked Wes- 
ley, in his conference of 1765. He answered, "In 
1Y29 my brother and I read the Bible ; saw inward 
and outward holiness therein ; followed after it, and 
incited others so to do. In 1737 we saw this holiness 
comes hj faith. In 1738 we saw we must hQ justified 
before we are sanctified. But still holiness was our 
point; inward and outward holiness. God then 
thrust us out to raise a holy people." 

John Wesley hastened, after his conversion, to the 
continent, to consult with the Moravians, whose 
English representatives had thus far been his best 
guides. He conversed with Count Zinzendorff and 
other leaders of the United Brethren, and returned 
to England confirmed in his faith and the now single 
purpose of his life. 

Whitefield had been preaching in Bristol, London, 
and some country towns, with extraordinary effect ; 



EAKLY PROGRESS IN E^^GLAND. 39 



seldom or never liad so great hosts of people assem- 
bled in England to liear a preacher; he had stirred 
the whole metropolis ; he had also hastened across the 
Atlantic and initiated in Georgia his great American 
mission, which was to quicken all the colonies and 
prepare the way for the later work of American 
Methodism. He was now on his way back to En- 
gland, at the opportune moment to co-operate with 
the "Wesleys. Charles "Wesley had also preached in 
London and elsewhere with much interest during his 
brother's absence in Germany; his congregations 
had been crowded, but church after church had been 
closed against him by the clergy, who could not 
condemn his doctrines, but rebuked his zeal and 
disapproved the eager interest and excitement of the 
people. He was compelled at last to resort to the 
prisons and the religious " society meetings," which 
have been mentioned, and which now, more than 
ever, seemed a providential provision for the incip- 
ient Methodism. When John Wesley reached the 
city he resorted to these humble assemblies as to an 
asylum. The next day after his arrival " I began," 
he says, " to declare in my own country the glad 
tidings of salvation, preaching three times, and after- 
ward expounding to a large company in the Minories. 
On Monday I rejoiced to meet our little society, 
which now consisted of thirty-two persons. The 
next day I went to the condemned felons in New- 



4:0 CENTENARY OF AMERICAN METHODISM. 



gate, and offered them a free salvation. In the even- 
ing I went to a society in Bear Yard, and preached 
repentance and remission of sins. The next evening 
I spoke the truth in love at a society in Aldersgate- 
street ; some contradicted at first, but not long ; so 
that nothing but love appeared at our parting. 
Thursday, 21st, I went to a society in Gutter Lane, 
but I could not declare the mighty works of God 
there as I did afterward at the Savoy, with all sim- 
plicity, and the word did not return empty. On 
Saturday, 23d, I was enabled to speak strong words 
both at ITewgate and at Mr. E.'s society, and the 
next day at St. Anne's, and twice at St. John's, Clerk- 
en well, so that I fear they will bear with me there no 
longer." Thus he entered upon the great career of 
his life ; for these incessant labors, it has been justly 
observed, were no consequence of a febrile or tempo- 
rary zeal ; they were an example of what was there- 
after to be almost his daily habit till he fell, in his 
eighty-eighth year, at the head of more than a hund- 
red and fifty thousand followers, and five hundred and 
fifty itinerant preachers, who were stimulated by his 
unabated zeal to similar labors in both hemispheres. 
He began by " expounding," nearly every day, in the 
London " Societies." On Sundays he preached in 
the churches, but, at the end of almost every sermon, 
he records it to be the last time ; not that his manner 
was clamorous, or in any way eccentric ; nor that his 



EAELY PKOGBESS I^^ ENGLAND. 41 



doctrine was heretical, for it was clearly that of the 
Homilies and other standards of the Church ; but it 
was brought out too forcibly and j)^6sented too 
vividly for the state of religions life aronnd him. 
He went from the closed pnlpits not only to the 
"Societies," bnt to the prisons and the hospitals, 
where his message was received with gratitude and 
tears, and was attended with the demonstration of 
the Spirit and of power. 

Denied the city pulpits, the brothers went not only 
to the " Societies " and prisons, but to and fro in the 
country, preaching almost daily. Whitefield was 
needed to lead them into more thorough and more 
necessary " irregillarities." He arrived in London 
December 8, 1738. Wesley hastened to greet him, 
and on the 12th " God gave us," he writes, " once 
more to take sweet counsel together." The mighty 
preacher who had agitated the whole metropolis a 
year before, now met the same treatment as his 
Oxford friends. In three days five churches were 
denied him. Good, however, was to come out of 
this evil. He also had recourse now to the "Soci- 
eties," and his ardent soul caught new zeal from their 
simple devotions as from his new trials. Wesley 
describes a scene at one of these assemblies, which 
reminds us of the preparatory Pentecostal baptism of 
fire, by which the apostles were " endued with power 
from on high" for their mission. He says, January 



42 CEITTEKAEY OF AMERICAK METHODISM. 

1, 1739, that Messrs. Hall, Kincliin, Ingham, White- 
field, and his brother Charles were present with him 
at a love-feast in Fetter Lane, with about sixty of their 
brethren. "About three in the morning, as they were 
continuing instant in prayer, the power of God came 
mightily upon them, insomuch that many cried out 
for exceeding joy, and many fell to the ground. As 
soon as they had recovered a little from the awe and 
amazement which the presence of the Divine Majesty 
had inspired, they broke out with one voice, " We 
praise thee, O God ; we acknowledge thee to be the 
Lord." Whitefield exclaims : " It was a Pentecostal 
season, indeed." And he adds, respecting these 
" Society meetings," that sometirnes whole nights 
were spent in prayer. Often have we been filled as 
with new wine, and often have I seen them over- 
whelmed with the Divine Presence, and cry out, 
' Will God indeed dwell with men upon earth ? 
How dreadful is -this place ! This is no other than 
the house of God, and the gate of heaven ! ' " In this 
manner did the three evangelists begin together the 
memorable year which was afterward to be recog- 
nized as the epoch of Methodism. On the 5th 
Whitefield records an occasion which foreshadowed 
the future. A "conference" was held at Islington 
with seven ministers, " despised Methodists," con- 
cerning many things of importance. They contin- 
ued in fasting and prayer till three o'clock, and then 



EAELY PEOGEESS IX EXGLAXD. 



43 



parted icith a full co7ivictio7i that God was ahout to 
do great things among usP 

Was it necessary that these predicted great things" 
should be done in England at this time ? The moral 
condition of the United Kingdom in the last centmy 
is well knoTrn. Citations from indisputable author- 
ities, to prove its general demoralization, have 
become trite passages in works on ]Methodism. The 
reaction against Puritanism, produced by the restora- 
tion of the Stuarts, had left a universal moral blight 
upon the nation. Seldom or never had gross vice 
been more rife among the masses of the people, sel- 
dom or never had the Churches and their clergy sunk 
into more complete moral stupor, not- to say moral 
death. Bishop Burnet declares that he was ^'op- 
pressed night and day" with ^^sad thoughts" on the 
prospects of Christianity in the realm. I cannot," 
he adds, look on without the deepest concern, when 
I see the imminent ruin hanging over this Church, 
and, by consequence, over the whole Eeformation. 
The outward state of things is black enough, God 
knows; but that which heightens my fears rises 
chiefly from the inward state into which we are 
unhappily fallen." Eeferring to the character of 
the cle]'gy, he says, ^" Our ember weeks are the bur- 
den and grief of my life. The much greater part of 
those who come to be ordained are ignorant to a 
degree not to be apprehended by those who are not 



44 CENTEN'ARY OF AMERICAN METHODISM. 



obliged to know it. The easiest part of knowledge is 
that to which they are the greatest strangers. Those 
who have read some few books, yet never seem to 
have read the Scriptures. Many cannot give a toler- 
able account even of the Catechism itself, how short 
and plain soever. This does often tear my heart. 
The case is not much better in many who, having 
got into orders, come for institution, and cannot 
make it appear that they have read the Scriptures, 
or any one good book, since they were ordained." 
Watts declares that there was " a general decay of 
vital religion in the hearts and lives of men ; " that 
"this declension of piety and virtue" was common 
among Dissenters and Churchmen ; that it was " a 
general matter of mournful observation among all 
who lay the cause of God to heart ; " and he called 
upon " every one to use all possible efforts for the 
recovery of dying religion in the world P Another 
writer asserts that " the Spirit of God has so far de- 
parted from the nation, that hereby almost all vital 
religion is lost out of the world." Another says, 
" The religion of nature makes up the darling topics 
of our age ; and the religion of Jesus is valued only 
for the sake of that, and only so far as it carries on 
the light of nature, and is a bare improvement of 
that kind of light. All that is restrictively Chris- 
tian, or that is peculiar to Christ, (everything con- 
cerning him that has not its apparent foundation 



EAKLY PEOGEESS IN ENGLAND. 45 



in natural light, or that goes beyond its prin- 
ciples,) is waived, and banished, and despised." 
Archbishop Seeker says : In this we cannot be 
mistaken, that an open and professed disregard is 
become, through a variety of unhappy causes, the 
distinguishing character of the present age.'' 
" Such," he declares, " are the dissoluteness and 
contempt of principle in the higher part of the 
world, and the profligacy, intemperance, and fear- 
lessness of committing crimes, in the lower, as must, 
if this torrent of impiety stop not, become absolutely 
fatal." He further asserts that " Christianity is ridi- 
culed and railed at with very little reserve, and the 
teachers of it without any at all ; " and this testimony 
was made but one year before that which is com- 
memorated as the epoch of Methodism. About the 
same time Butler published his great work on the 
Analogy between Religion and the Constitution and 
Course of Nature, as a check to the infidelity of the 
age. In his preface he gives a deplorable descrip- 
tion of the religious world. He concurs with the 
preceding authorities in representing it as in the 
very extremity of decline. " It has come," he says, 
"to be taken for granted that Christianity is no 
longer a subject of inquiry ; but that it is now at 
length discovered to be fictitious. And accordingly 
it is treated as if, in the present age, this were an 
agreed point among all persons of discernment, and 



46 CENTENAEY OF AMERICAN METHODISM. 



nothing remained hut to set it up as a principal 
suhject for mirth and ridicule." Southey says: 
" The clergy had lost that authority which may 
always command at least the appearance of respect ; 
and they had lost that respect also by which the 
place of authority may sometimes so much more 
worthily be supplied. In the great majority of the 
clergy zeal was wanting. The excellent Leighton 
spoke of the Church as a fair carcass without a 
spirit. Burnet observes that, in his time, our clergy 
had less authoi'ity, and were under more contempt, 
than those of any other Church in all Europe ; for 
they were much the most remiss in their labors, and 
the least severe in their lives. It was not that their 
lives were scandalous ; he entirely acquitted them of 
any such imputation ; but they were not exemplary, 
as it became them to be ; and in the sincerity of a 
pious and reflecting mind, he pronounced that they 
would never regain the influence they had lost till 
they lived better and labored more." 

A scarcely less prejudiced writer on Methodism, 
Isaac Taylor, admits that when Wesley appeared the 
Anglican Church was " an ecclesiastical system 'under 
which the people of England had lapsed into hea- 
thenism, or a state hardly to be distinguished from 
it ; " and that Methodism " preserved from extinction 
and reanimated the languishing Nonconformity of 
the last century, which, just at the time of the 



EAELY PROGRESS IX EXGLAXD. 



47 



Methodistic reyiyal, was rapidly in course to be 
found nowhere but in books." 

This general decline had reached its extremity 
when "W^esley and his coadjutors appeared. ^' It 
was," to use his own words, just at the time when 
we wanted little of filling up the measure of our 
iniquities, that two or three clergymen of the Church 
of England began vehemently to call sinners to 
repentance." "What," he asks, is the present 
characteristic of the English nation ? It is ungodli- 
ness. Ungodliness is our universal, our constant, 
our peculiar character." 

There was, in fact, a profound infidelity under- 
mining British Christianity at this time ; it was the 
chief cause of the inefficiency of the pulpit, of the 
declension of the Churches, and of the popular 
demoralization. Moreover, it really gave birth to 
the later skepticism of Germany and of Europe gener- 
ally. The writings of Hobbes, Shaftesbury, Tindal, 
and Collins, were in prevalent circulation, and were 
reinforced by the three mightiest giants, in skeptical 
error, which modern times have produced, Boling- 
broke, Hume, and Gibbon. Natural religion was 
the favorite study of the clergy, and of the learned 
generally, and included most of their theology. 
Collins and Tindal had denounced Christianity as 
priestcraft ; Whiston pronounced the miracles to be 
Jewish impositions ; "Woolston declared them to be 



48 CENTENARY OF AMEETCAN METHODISM. 

allegories; and tlie next year after tlie recognized 
date of Methodism, Edelmann and Eeimarus intro- 
duced the English deism into Germany, and thns 
founded the Eationalism which, as developed by her 
" Historical " or ITegative Criticism," nearly extin- 
guished, for a time, her religious life. The decayed 
state of the English Church, in which Methodism was 
about to have its birth, was, in fine, the cause, direct 
or indirect, of most of the infidelity of the age, both 
at home and abroad. Arianism and Socinianism, 
taught by su.ch men as Clarke, Priestley, Price, and 
Whiston, had become fashionable among the best 
English thinkers. Many illustrious names can be 
cited as exceptions ; they were, however, but excep- 
tions to the general condition of religion throughout 
the United Kingdom. Some of the most emphatic 
testimonies, to the deplorable declension of piety and 
morals, which have come down to us, are from the 
pens of such exceptional men. 

The Methodistic movement may be said to have 
now definitively commenced. Whitefield went to 
Bristol ; the whole city seemed aroused by his power- 
ful preaching, but he was soon repelled from its pul- 
pits. He betook himself to its jails, alms-houses, and 
public grounds, where the common people "heard 
him gladly." He went to the neighboring Kings- 
wood Mines, and there began that reformation and 
evangelization of the colliers of England, which has 



EARLY PROGRESS 11^ EXGL.i2CD. 



49 



been one of the greatest honors of Methodism. 
The miners came forth unwashed from their caverns 
and crowded about him to hear his open-air sermons, 
weeping till their tears traced white gutters" down 
their cheeks. All the surrounding country felt the 
sensation of his wonderful eloquence, and his con- 
gregations ^'on the mounts" comprised thousands 
and tens of thousands ; " the hedges and trees were 
full." His sonorous voice rung to their utmost 
limit; they stood "in an awful manner around the 
mount," hushed into profound silence, and he was 
reminded by the spectacle of " the scene of the 
general assembly " of the last day. He sent to Lon- 
don for Wesley, who, on arriving, scrupled as a rigid 
churchman about "out-door preaching." But he 
soon saw that it was a providential necessity. What 
else could he and his associates do? The churches 
were closed against them, and the people were 
perishing in ignorance and vice. He followed 
Whitefield's example, and having once preached in 
the open air, he had crossed the Eubicon, never to 
retreat. Field preaching, with all its consequences, 
was now to be the first great practical measure of 
Methodism, and with it the whole realm was to be 
stirred. 

Whitefield, leaving Wesley among the blackened 

colliers of Kingswood, hastened into Wales, where 

Howell Harris, a young man who had been driven 

4 



50 CEXTE^TAKY OF AMEEICAN METHODISM. 

from Oxford University by its infidelity and its 
scoffings at his religions earnestness, was going to 
and fro preaching in its villages, thongh he was not 
in Holy Orders. His example seemed a strange, a 
providential coincidence with the new movement 
at London, Bristol, and Kingswood. Whitefield 
seized his hand and bade him God speed." They 
traversed the principality together, preaching in 
churches, in the grave-yards, in the market-places, 
on the mountain sides. Other evangelists co-oper- 
ated with them, chiefly Griffith Jones, and Daniel 
Rowlands " the "Welsh thunderer." Wales, which had 
been as demoralized as any other part of the United 
Kingdom, was thoroughly aroused by these itiner- 
ants, and rose as in a moral resurrection under the 
subsequent labors of Methodism. The new denomi- 
nation, distinguished into two sections, as Calvinistic 
and Arminian, now predominates in the country. 
"Wales had at the beginning of the century but 
twenty-three dissenting Churches ; they have multi- 
plied to twenty-five hundred ; more than twelve hund- 
red of them are Methodistic. A chapel dots every 
three square miles of its territory, and over a million 
of people, nearly the whole population, attend public 
worship some part of every Sunday. Wales has been 
religiously renovated by the Methodistic movement. 

Whitefield returned to London, where he and 
Wesley took the open field at Moorfields and 



EAELY PROGEESS Ds" EXGLAXD. 



51 



Kennington Common. Tlieii' congregations were 
estimated at twenty, forty, sometimes fifty tlion- 
sand. The singing of tlie vast multitudes could 
be heard two miles ofi, "Wh.itefield's voice a mile. 
The lowest masses of the neglected people were 
thus invaded by the Gospel ; hundreds and thousands 
were reclaimed to virtue, and piety and incorporated 
in the London " Societies." It was not long before 
the evangelists were abroad in all England, Scotland, 
Wales, and Ireland, surprising and arousing the 
Churches, and the population generally, by their 
unwonted measures and zeal, and thus was inaugu- 
rated the greatest " religious revival " of modern ages. 

Lay preachers were rapidly raised up from among 
the converts of the movement: Thomas Maxfield, 
Thomas Eichards, Thomas Westell, John Xelson, 
and others, the pioneers of that army of thousands 
and tens of thousands of lay itinerants whose proc- 
lamation of the truth has since resounded through 
much of both hemispheres, and is daily sounding 
further and further toward the ends of the earth. 
Like their great leaders, they traveled over the realm 
preaching by day and by night. Their artless but 
earnest ministry secured the attention of the com- 
mon people, and it was apparent that they wielded 
a power which belonged not to the established pul- 
pit. Wesley as their superintendent and guide was 
almost ubiquitous in the land, preaching twice or 



52 CENTENARY OF AMERICAN METHODISM. 

thrice daily, beginning at five o'clock in the morn- 
ing. '^Societies" were formed in order to bring 
their numerous converts into relations of Christian 
communion and discipline. Being excluded from 
the churches, they were compelled to meet in the 
open air till they began the erection of chapels. On 
May 12, 1739, the foundations of the first Methodist 
chapel in the world were laid, with prayers and songs of 
praise, at Bristol ; in November of the same year, the 
" Foundry," in London, was consecrated. The former 
was begun first, though the latter was opened first. 
Wesley had no thought yet of a sect or a schism ; he 
was a stanch churchman; he opened these edifices 
as temporary accommodations of his converts, and 
only because the clergy of the establishment com- 
pelled him to do so, by excluding him and his asso- 
ciates from its pulpits and sacramental altars. The 
chapel in Bristol bore the humble name of "The 
Preaching House," that in London its former title of 
the " Old Foundry." 

The year in which these chapels were opened is 
considered to be the epoch of Methodism. In his 
" Church History," Wesley assigns it other dates, as 
the formation of "''the Holy Club," at Oxford, in 
1729 ; and the meeting of himself and others, by the 
advice of Peter Bohler, in Fetter Lane, May 1, 1738 ; 
but in his introduction to the General Pules of the 
Society," he says, "In the latter end of the year 



EARLY PROGRESS IK ElSraLAND. 



53 



1739, eight or ten persons came to me in London 
and desired that I "would spend some time with them 
in prayer, and advise them how to flee from the 
wrath to come; this was the rise of the United 
Society." " This," he tells ns, " was soon after the 
consecration of the Foundry." Twelve came the 
first night, forty the next, and soon after a hundred. 
Though he continued in fraternal relations with the 
Moravian "Societies" at London, till July 20, 1740, 
the society, formed the preceding year, was organized 
and controlled by himself, and has continued in un- 
broken succession down to our day. The date of its 
origin was celebrated with centenary solemnities by 
all the Methodist communities of the world in 1839. 
It was signalized not only by the organization of the 
Society, by the opening of the Foundry for worship, 
9-nd by the erection at Bristol of the first Methodist 
chapel, but by the organization of " Bands " in that 
city, and the publication, by the "Wesleys, of their 
" Hymns and Sacred Poems," the beginning of that 
Methodistic psalmody which has since been of inesti- 
mable service to the denomination, wherever it has 
extended, as its virtual liturgy. 

It was not long before "societies," and chapels 
or " preaching houses," as they were unpretentiously 
called, began to rise more or less in all parts of the 
country. Hostilities also arose; mobs assailed the 
itinerants; their chapels were pulled down: for 



54 CENTENARY OF AMERICAN METHODISM. 

montlis, and even for years, riots were of almost 
constant occurrence. In some sections tlie rabble 
moved in hosts from village to village, attacking 
preachers and people, destroying not only the 
churches, but the homes of Methodists. In Staf- 
fordshire " the whole region was in a state little 
short of civil war." In Daiiaston, Charles Wesley 
could distinguish the houses of the Methodists by 
their marks of violence as he rode through the town. 
At "Walsall he saw the flag of the rioters waving 
in the market-place, their headquarters. In Lich- 
field "all the rabble of the country was gathered 
together, and laid waste all before them." The 
storm swept over nearly all Cornwall. ITewcastle 
was in tumult. In London even occurred formidable 
mobs. In Cork and Dublin they prevailed, almost 
beyond the control of the magistrates. Methodism 
had, in fine, to fight its way over nearly every field 
it entered in Great Britain and Ireland. The clergy 
and the magistrates were often the instigators of 
these tumults. 'Not a few of the itinerants were 
imprisoned, or impressed into the army and the 
navy; some were martyred. But the devoted suf- 
ferers held on their way till they conquered the 
mob, and led it by thousands to their humble altars. 
Howell Harris, amid storms of persecution, succeeded, 
as we have seen, in planting Methodism in Wales, 
where it has elevated the popular religious condi- 



EAELY PEOGEESS ENGLAIS^D. 



55 



tion, once exceedingly low^ above that of Scotland. 
"Wesley traversed Ireland as well as Great Britain. 
He crossed tlie channel forty-two times, making 
twenty-one visits ; and Methodism has yielded there 
some of its best frnits. Whitefield, known as a Cal- 
vinist, and forming no societies, was received in Scot- 
land. His congregations were immense, filling val- 
leys or covering hills, and his influence quickened 
into life its Churches. He continued to aid Harris 
in founding Calvinistic Methodism in Wales. The 
whole evangelical dissent of England still feels his 
power. With the Countess of Huntingdon, he 
founded the Calvinistic Methodism of Great Britain ; 
but such was the moral unity of both parties, the 
Arminian and the Calvinistic, that the essential 
unity of the general Methodistic movement was 
maintained, awakening to a great extent the spirit- 
ual life of both the national Church and of the 'Non- 
conformists, and producing most of those "Chris- 
tian enterprises" by which British piety has since 
been spreading its influence around the globe. The 
British Bible Society, most of the British Missionary 
Societies, Tract Societies, the Sunday-school, religious 
periodicals, cheap popular literature, negro emanci- 
pation, Exeter Hall with its public benefits and fol- 
lies, all arose directly or indirectly from the impulse 
of Methodism. 
Whitefield crossed the Atlantic thirteen times and 



56 CENTENAKY OF AMERICAN METHODISM. 

journeyed incessantly througli the colonies, passing 
and repassing from Georgia to Maine like a "flame 
of fire." The Congregational Churches of 'New En- 
gland, the Presbyterians and the Baptists of the 
Middle States, and the mixed colonies of the South, 
owe their later religious life and energy mostly to 
the impulse given by his powerful ministrations. 
The "great awakening" under Edwards had not 
only subsided before "Whitefield's arrival, but had 
reacted. Whitefield restored it; and the New En- 
gland Churches received under his labors an inspira- 
tion of zeal and energy which has never died out. 
He extended the revival from the Congregational 
Churches of the Eastern to the Presbyterian Churches 
of the Middle States. In Pennsylvania and l^ew 
Jersey, where Frelinghuysen, Blair, Rowland, and 
the two Tennents had been laboring with evangelical 
zeal, he was received as a prophet from God, and it 
was then that the Presbyterian Church took that 
attitude of evangelical power and aggression which 
has ever since characterized it. These faithful men 
had begun a humble ministerial school in a log- 
cabin " twenty feet long and nearly as many broad." 
" The work is of God," said Whitefield, " and there- 
fore cannot come to naught." The fame of Prince- 
ton has verified his prediction. " N"assau Hall re- 
ceived a Methodistic baptism at its birth ; Whitefield 
inspirited its founders, and was honored by it with 



EAELY PROGEESS IX E^TGLAIsT). 



57 



the title of A.M. ; the Methodists in England gave 
it funds ; and one of its noblest presidents (Dayies) 
was a correspondent of Wesley, and honored him as 
a ' restorer of the true faith.' " Dartmouth College 
arose from the same impulse. It received its chief 
early funds from the British Methodists, and bears 
the name of one of their chief Calyinistic associates, 
whom Cowper celebrated as " The one who wore a 
coronet and prayed." "Whitefield's preaching, and 
especially the reading of liis printed sermons in Vir- 
ginia, led to the founding of the Presbyterian Church 
in that state, whence it has extended to the South 
and South-west. " The stock from which the Baptists 
of Virginia and those in all the South and South-west 
have sprung was also Whitefieldian." The founder 
of the Freewill Baptists of the United States was 
converted under the last preaching of Whitefield. 

Such are but glimpses of the progress of British 
Methodism before its organization in America. It 
became apparent that a new epoch had occurred in 
the history of English Christianity. Under the in- 
fluence of Whitefleld and the Countess of Hunting- 
don the Calvinistic nonconforaiity of the realm arose 
as from the dead to new life, which has continued 
ever since with increasing energy; by the same 
means, with the co-operation of Wesley, a powerful 
evangelical party was raised up in the Establishment, 
and most of the measures of evangelical propagand- 



58 CENTEIS^AEY OF AMERICAN METHODISM. 



ism whicli have since kept Britisli Christianity alive 
with energy, and have extended its activity to the 
foreign world, are distinctly traceable to this great 
" revival." Meanwhile its reformatory power among 
the English common people had become nnquestion- 
able and marvelous to all candid observers. It has 
been remarked that at about the end of its first 
decade a scarcely paralleled religions interest had 
been spread and sustained throughout the United 
Kingdom and along the Atlantic coast of America. 
'Not only had the Churches of both countries been 
extensively reawakened, but the great fact of a Lay 
Ministry had been accomplished — great not only in its 
direct results, but perhaps more so by its reacting 
shock, in various respects, against the ecclesiasticism 
which for fifteen hundred years had fettered Christi- 
anity with bands of iron. It had presented before 
the world the greatest pulpit orator of the age, if 
not of any age — "Whitefield ; also one of the greatest 
religious legislators of history — ^Wesley; a hymnist 
whose supremacy has been but doubtfully disputed 
by a single rival — Charles Wesley; and the most 
signal example of female agency in religious affairs 
which Christian history records — the Countess of 
Huntingdon. The lowest abysses of the English 
population among colliers and miners had been 
reached by the Gospel. Calvinistic Methodism was 
restoring the decayed nonconformity of England. 



EARLY PROGRESS IN ENGLAND. 



59 



"Wesleyan Methodism, thougli adhering to the Estab- 
lishment, had taken an organic and permanent form ; 
it had its Annual Conferences, Quarterly Conferences, 
Class Meetings and Band Meetings ; its Watch-nights 
and Love-feasts; its Traveling Preachers, Local 
Preachers, Exhorters, Leaders, Trustees, and Stew- 
ards. It had districted England, Wales, and Ireland 
into Circuits for systematic ministerial labors, and now 
commanded a ministerial force of about seventy men. 
It had fought its way through incredible persecutions 
and riots, and had won at last a general, though not 
universal peace. Its Chapels and Preachers' houses, 
or parsonages, were multiplying over the country. 
It had a rich Psalmody, which has since spread wher- 
ever the English tongue is used ; and a well-defined 
Theology, distinguished by two notable features that 
could not fail to secure popular interest, namely, that 
it transcended the prevalent creeds in both spwituality 
and liberality ; in its experimental doctrines of Con- 
version, Sanctification, and the Witness of the Spirit, 
and in the evangelical liberalism of its Arminian- 
ism. It had begun its present scheme of Popular 
Eeligious Literature, had provided the first of that 
series of Academic institutions which has since ex- 
tended with its progress, and was contemplating a 
plan of Ministerial Education, which has been effect- 
ively accomplished. Already the despondent decla- 
rations of Watts, Seeker, and Butler, respecting the 



60 CENTENARY OF AHEPJCAIST METHODISM. 

prospects of religion, might be pronounced no longer 
relevant. Yet Watts had been dead but two years, 
and Seeker and Butler still survived. 

At the end of the third decade, the year in which 
it sent its first missionaries to America, it enrolled 
more than twenty-eight thousand members and one 
hundred and twelve lay traveling preachers, besides 
the Wesleys and their clerical coadjutors. 

"Wesley lived to see his cause established in the 
United States with an episcopal organization, planted 
in the British North American Provinces, and in the 
West Indies, and died at last, in 1791, with his 
system apparently completed, universally effective 
and prosperous, sustained by five hundred and fifty 
itinerant and thousands of local preachers, and more 
than a hundred and forty thousand members, and so 
energetic that many men, who had been his co-labor- 
ers, lived to see it the predominant body of Dissenters 
in the United Kingdom and the British Colonies, 
the most numerous Church of the United States of 
America, and successfully planted on most of the 
outlines of the missionary world. 

In 1839 was celebrated the hundredth anniversary 
of English Methodism. The English Methodists 
appointed the 25th of October as a day of festive 
religious observance throughout their Churches in 
all parts of the world. Pecuniary contributions for 
certain great interests of the Church were called for, 



EAELY PEOGRESS IN ENGLAND. 61 



and the call was answered by a liberality never before 
equaled in any one instance in their history, if, in- 
deed, in the history of any other Christian body. 
The Wesleyans gave one million and eighty thousand 
dollars. The American Methodists gave six hund- 
red thousand. On the appointed day Methodists 
throughout the earth met in their temples to thank 
God for his blessings upon the first cycle of their his- 
tory. Signal indeed had been those blessings. Wes- 
ley, as we have seen, died in 1791, at the head of a host 
of 550 itinerant preachers, and 140,000 communicants 
in the United Kingdom, the British Provinces, in 
the TJnited States, and the "West Indies ; at the cen- 
tenary, less than half a century later, the denomina- 
tion had grown to more than 1,171,000, including 
about 5,200 itinerant preachers, in the "Wesleyan 
and Methodist Episcopal Churches ; and, comprising 
the various bodies bearing the name of Methodists, 
to an army of more than 1,400,000, of whom 6,080 
were itinerant preachers. Its missionaries, accredited 
members of Conferences, were about three hundi^ed 
and fifty, with nearly an equal number of salaried, 
and about three thousand unpaid assistants. They 
occupied about three hundred stations, each station 
being the head of a circuit. They were laboring in 
Sweden, Germany, France, Cadiz, Gibraltar, Malta, 
Western and Southern Africa, Ceylon, continental 
India, ITew South Wales, Yan Dieman's Land, New 



62 CENTENARY OF AMERICAN METHODISM. 

Zealand, Tonga, Habai Islands, Yavou Islands, Fiji 
Islands, the "West Indies. They had under instrnc- 
tion in their mission schools about fifty thousand 
pupils, and in their mission Churches were more 
than seventy thousand communicants. At least two 
hundred thousand persons heard the Gospel regu- 
larly in their mission chapels. The Methodist mis- 
sionaries were now more numerous than the whole 
"Wesley an ministry as enrolled on the Minutes of 
Wesley's last Conference, and their missionary com- 
municants were about equal to the whole number 
of Methodists in Europe at that day. Wesley pre- 
sided over Methodism during its first half century 
and two years more; during the remainder of the 
century it reproduced, in its missions alone, the 
whole numerical force of its first half century. Thus 
far it had demonstrated its providential mission as a 
revival of apostolic spiritual life and apostolic propa- 
gandism. 



EAELY PROGRESS IK AMERICA. 63 



CHAPTER IL 

ORIGIK, FOUNDERS, AXD PROGRESS OF METHODISM IN 
AMERICA. 

Though Wesley sent no missionaries to America 
till 1769, the true epocli of American Metliodism 
dates three years earlier. 

The humbleness of its origin, contrasted with the 
greatness of its results, presents perhaps as striking 
an example as ecclesiastical history affords since the 
apostolic age, of the scriptural truth, that " God hath 
chosen the weak things of the world to confound the 
things which are mighty, and low things of the 
world, and things which are despised, hath God 
chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to 
naught things that are : that no flesh should glory 
in his presence." The History of the Methodist 
Episcopal Church records that, in 1758, John Wes- 
ley visited the county of Limerick, Ireland ; that 
his Journal reports there a singular community, set- 
tled in Court Mattress, and in Killiheen, Balligar- 
rane, and Pallas, villages within four miles of Court 
Mattress; that they were not native Celts, but a 
Teutonic population, and that having been nearly 
half a century without pastors who could speak their 



64 CENTENARY OF AMERICAN METHODISM. 

language, tliey had become tliorouglily demoralized : 
noted for drunkenness, profanity, and " utter neglect 
of religion." But the Methodist itinerants had pene- 
trated to their hamlets, and they were now a re- 
formed, a devout people. They had erected a large 
chapel in the center of Court Mattress. "So did 
God at last provide,'' writes Wesley, " for these poor 
strangers who, for fifty years, had none who cared 
for their souls.'-' At later visits he declares that 
three such towns as Court Mattress, Killiheen, and 
Balligarrane were hardly to be found anywhere else 
in Ireland or England. There was "no cursing 
or swearing, no Sabbath breaking, no drunkenness, 
no ale-house in any of them." " They had become 
a serious, thinking people, and their diligence had 
turned all their land into a garden. How will 
these poor foreigners," he adds, " rise up in the 
day of judgment against those that are round about 
them ! " But the most interesting fact respecting 
this obscure colony was not yet apprehended by 
Wesley, or he would have wondered still more at 
their providential history. The Methodism of the 
ISTew World was already germinating among them ; 
in about two years the prolific seed was to be trans- 
planted to the distant continent, and at the time of 
Wesley's death (about thirty years later) its vigorous 
boughs were to extend over the land from Canada to 
Georgia, from the Atlantic to the Mississippi, shelter- 



EARLY PROGRESS I^^ AMERICA. 



65 



lug more than sixty-three thonsand Cliurcli members, 
and two hundred and fifty itinerant preachers. In 
about thirty years after Wesley's death (1820) Ameri- 
can Methodism was to advance to the front of the 
great " movement " with a majority of more than 
seventeen thousand over the parent Church, including 
all its foreign dependencies, and thenceforward the 
chief numerical triumphs of the denomination were 
to be in the western hemisphere. 

The " Palatines," as these German-Irishmen are 
usually called, were driven from the Palatinate, on 
the Rhine, by the Papal troops of Louis XIV. They 
found refuge within the lines of Marlborough, and 
were provided for by Queen Anne, some in England, 
some in Ireland, some in America. The Teutonic 
Methodists in the county of Limerick, who were des- 
tined to found American Methodism, were descend- 
ants of the persecuted Protestants whom the Papal 
zeal of the Grand Monarch had expatriated ; his 
attempt to suppress Protestantism in the Palatinate 
led thus to one of the most energetic developments 
of Protestantism in the modern history of religion. 
" On a spring morning in 1760," says an Irish writer, 
" a group of emigrants might have been seen at the 
custom-house quay, Limerick, preparing to embark 
for America. At that time emigration was not so 
common an occurrence as it is now, and the excite- 
ment connected with their departure was intense. 

5 

I 



66 CENTEISTARY OF AMERICAIS' METHODISM. 

They were Palatines from Balligarrane, and were 
accompanied to tlie vessel's side by crowds of their 
companions and friends, some of whom had come 
sixteen miles to say ^farewell' for the last time. 
One of those about to leave— a young man, with a 
thoughtful look and resolute bearing — ^is evidently 
the leader of the party, and more than an ordinary 
pang is felt by many as they bid him farewell. He 
had been one of the first-fruits of his countrymen to 
Christ, had been the leader of the infant Church, and 
in their humble chapel had often ministered to them 
the word of life. He is surrounded by his spiritual 
children and friends, who are anxious to have some 
parting words of counsel and instruction. He enters 
the vessel, and from its side once more breaks among 
them the bread of life. And now the last prayer is 
offered ; they embrace each other ; the vessel begins 
to move. As she recedes uplifted hands and uplifted 
hearts attest what all felt. But none of all that vast 
multitude felt more, probably, than that young man. 
His name is Philip Embury. His party consisted of 
Ids wife, Mary Switzer, to whom he had been mar- 
ried on the 27th of November, 1758, in Eathkeale 
Church ; two of his brothers and their families ; 
Peter Switzer, probably a brother of his wife ; Paul 
Heck, and Barbara his wife ; Yaler Tettler ; Philip 
Morgan, and a family of the Dulmages. The vessel 
arrived safely in New York on the 10th of August, 



EARLY PROGRESS IN AMERICA. 



67 



1760. Who that pictures before his mind that com- 
pany of Christian emigrants leaving the Irish shore 
but must be struck with the simple beauty of the 
scene ? Tet who among the crowd that saw them 
leave could have thought that two of the little band 
were destined, in the mysterious providence of God, 
to influence for good countless myriads, and that 
their names should live long as the sun and moon 
endure? Tet so it was. That vessel contained 
Philip Embury, the first class-leader and local 
preacher of Methodism on the American continent, 
and Barbara Heck, ' a mother in Israel,' one of its 
first members, the germ from which, in the good 
providence of God, has sprung the Methodist Episco- 
pal Church of the United States ; a Church which 
has now more or less under its influence about seven 
millions of the germinant mind of that new and 
teeming hemisphere ! ' There shall be a handful of 
corn in the earth upon the top of the mountains; 
the fruit thereof shall shake like Lebanon : and they 
of the city shall flourish like grass of the earth.' " 

In 1752 Philip Embury heard John "Wesley preach 
in Ireland ; and of the same year, a manuscript frag- 
ment, in his own hand-writing, says, " On Christmas 
Day, being Monday, the 25th December, in the year 
1752, the Lord shone into my soul, by a glimpse of 
his redeeming love, being an earnest of my redemption 
in Christ Jesus, to whom be glory for ever and ever. 



68 CENTENARY OF AMERICAN METHODISM. 

Amen!" He was respected for his probity and 
obliging manners ; he studied the elements of knowl- 
edge under both English and German teachers, and 
afterward learned the craft of a carpenter, in which, 
it is said, he became skillful. Soon after his conver- 
sion he was licensed as a local preacher, and minis 
tered to his countrymen in their Irish settlements. 
He was modest and shrunk from responsibility. On 
arriving at l^ew York it is probable, though not cer- 
tain, that he endeavored to keep up the religious 
communion of his Methodist fellow-immigrants ; but 
the temptations of their new condition prevailed 
against him ; they fell away, and he seems to have 
become discouraged, and not to have used his oflSce 
as a "local preacher" till the autumn of 1766. Dr. 
Eoberts, who has made this part of our history a 
special study, says, " the families who accompanied 
him were not all Wesleyans — only a few of them ; the 
remainder were members of the Protestant Church in 
Ireland, but made no profession of an experimental 
knowledge of God, in the pardon of sin and adoption. 
After their arrival in New York, with the exception 
of Embury and three or four others, they all finally 
lost their sense of the fear of God, and became open 
worldlings. Some subsequently fell into greater 
depths of sin than others. Late in the year 1765 
another vessel arrived in ISTew York, bringing over 
Paul Euckle, Luke Eose, Jacob Heck, Peter Bark- 



EARLY PROGRESS IX AMERICA. 



69 



maiij and Henry Williams, with tlieir families. These 
were Palatines, some of them relatives of Embmy, 
and others his former friends and neighbors. A few 
of them only were "Wesleyans. Mrs. Barbara Heck, 
who had been residing; in Isew York since 1760, 
visited them frequently. One of the comjDany, Paul 
Ruckle, was her eldest brother. It was when visiting 
them on one of these occasions that she found some 
of the party engaged in a game of cards ; there is no 
proof, either direct or indirect, that any of them were 
Wesleyans, and connected with Embury. Her spirit 
was roused, and, doubtless emboldened by her long 
and intimate acquaintance with them in Ireland, she 
seized the cards, threw them into the &e, and then 
most solemnly warned them of their danger and 
duty. Leaving them, she went immediately to the 
dwelHng of Embury, who was her cousin. It was 
located upon Barrack-street, now Park Place. After 
narrating what she had seen and done, under the 
influence of the Divine Spirit and with power she 
appealed to him to be no longer silent, but to preach 
the word forthwith. She parried his excuses, and 
urged him to commence at once in his own house, 
and to his own people. He consented, and she went 
out and collected fom* persons, who, with herself, con- 
stituted his audience. After singing and prayer he 
preached to them, and enrolled them in a class. He 
continued thereafter to meet them weekly. Embury 



TO CENTENARY OF AMERICAN METHODISM. 

was not among the card-players, nor in tlie same 
house with them." 

Embury's house coiald not accommodate all the 
hearers who soon flocked to it ; he hired therefore a 
larger room in the neighborhood, providing for the 
rent by gratuitous contributions, and preaching with- 
out compensation. In a short time he had organized 
two classes," of six or seven members each. He 
extended his labors, preaching in other places, 
particularly the almshouse, where the poor heard 
him gladly. 

In the early part of the next year the humble 
pastor and his congregation were surprised by the 
appearance among them of a British officer in his 
regimentals; his reverent demeanor soon assured 
them that he had come not to interfere with, 
but to share their worship. At its close he intro- 
duced himself as Captain Thomas Webb, " of the 
King's service, but also a soldier of the Cross, and a 
spiritual son of John Wesley." They were over- 
joyed, and hailed him as a " brother beloved." The 
good captain had fought at Louisburg and at Quebec ; 
at the latter he had been wounded in the arm, and 
at the former had lost his right eye, over which he 
now wore a shade. After these perils he returned 
to England and heard Wesley preach in Bristol ; he 
became a regenerated man, and was licensed by Wes- 
ley as a local preacher. During the remainder of 



EARLY PROGRESS IN AMERICA. 71 

his life he was one of the most active evangelists of 
Methodism, preaching in England, Ireland, and 
America till his death in 1796. Asbury called him 
" an Israelite indeed." "He is a man of fire," wrote 
Wesley, " and the power of God constantly accom- 
panies his word." He heard Webb in the Old 
Foundry, London, and writes, "I admire the wis- 
dom of God in still raising np various preachers, 
according to the various tastes of men. The captain 
is all life and fire ; therefore although he is not deep 
or regular, yet many, who would not hear a better 
preacher, flock to hear him, and many are convinced 
under his preaching." He records, again, that he 
had " kindled a fiame " in Bath, " and it has not yet 
gone out." " I found his preaching in the street in 
Winchester had been blessed greatly. Many were 
more or less convinced of sin, and several had found 
peace with God. I never saw the house before so 
crowded with serious and attentive hearers." For 
eleven or twelve years we catch glimpses of the 
military evangelist in the Journals of "Wesley. The 
last of them is in 1785, when, being at Salisbury, 
where the captain had recently preached, he "en- 
deavored to avail himself of the fire which" that 
veteran " seldom failed to kindle." Fletcher of 
Madeley appreciated him, and tried hard with him 
to induce Benson, the commentator, to throw him- 
self into the Methodistic m^ovement in America. 



72 CENTE^^AEY OF AMERICAN METHODISM. 

Fletcher himself, doubtless by the influence of Webb, 
had strong thoughts of doing so, but his health for- 
bade it. The allusions to Webb in the cotemporftry 
publications of Methodism show that he was a man of 
profound piety. " He experienced much of the power 
of religion in his own soul," says an itinerant who 
usually lodged at his home in England ; " he wres- 
tled day and night with God for that degree of grace 
which he stood in need of that he might stand firm 
as the beaten anvil to the stroke, and he was favored 
with those communications from above which made 
him bold to declare the whole counsel of God. His 
evidence of the favor of God was so bright that he 
never lost a sense of that blessed truth, ' the blood of 
Jesus Christ cleanseth us from all sin.' For him to 
live was Christ, to die was gain." John Adams, the 
statesman of the American Revolution and President 
of the Eepublic, heard him with admiration, and 
describes him as " the old soldier, one of the most 
eloquent men I ever heard ; he reaches the imagina- 
tion and touches the passions very well, and ex- 
presses himself with great propriety." By another 
hearer he is spoken of as "a perfect Whitefield in 
declamation." A high Methodist authority, who 
knew the captain well, saj^s, " They saw the warrior 
in his face, and heard the missionary in his voice. 
Under his holy eloquence they trembled, they wept, 
and fell down under his mighty word." One of 



EAKLY PROGRESS IX AMERICA. 73 



Wesley's veterans, who was intimate witli the cap- 
tain, and who read the funeral service over his cofl&n, 
says, " Great multitudes crowded to hear him, and a 
vast number in different places owned him for their 
spiritual father. His ministry was plain, but re- 
markably powerful ; he was truly a Boanerges, and 
often made the stout-hearted tremble." 

Such was the stranger in uniform, whose sud- 
den appearance startled the little assembly of Em- 
bury's hearers. He had heard of them at Albany, 
where he had lived a short time before as ban-ack- 
master, and where he had opened his house for 
religious services, conducted by himself. He had 
hastened to Xew York to encourage the struggling 
society. Following the custom of the times, he 
always wore his military dress in public. He 
preached in it, with his sword lying on the table 
or desk before him. The populace were attracted 
by the spectacle, and soon crowded the preaching- 
room beyond its capacity. A rigging loft, sixty feet 
by eighteen, on William-street, was rented in 1767. 
Here Webb and Embury preached thrice a week to 
crowded assemblies. "It could not contain half the 
people who desired to hear the word of the Lord." 

A chapel was necessary. Barbara Heck, the real 
foundress of American Methodism, and who, from 
the day that she recalled Embury to his duty, had 
guarded the incipient cause with the vigilance of a 



74 CENTENABY OF AMERICAN METHODISM. 

priestess, was the first to suggest sucli a proyision ; 
Webb seconded her proposal. She even submitted a 
plan of the humble edifice, one which she believed 
God approved and had suggested to her while pray- 
ing on the subject. " I the Lord will do it," was 
the response to her supplication, which seemed to 
come to her by inspiration. A site on John-street, 
ever since sacred, was leased in 1Y68, and purchased 
two years later. Subscriptions were made extens- 
ively through the city for the expense of the 
modest edifice. Embury was first on the list of its 
trustees ; he had the honor of being first preacher, 
first class-leader, first treasurer, and first trustee of 
the first society of Methodism in the Western hemi- 
sphere. The chapel was of stone, faced with blue 
plaster, sixty feet by forty-two. Embury seems to 
have been its chief architect ; and he labored upon 
it by the side of the humblest mechanic. On the 
30th of October, 1Y68, he ascended its pulpit, made 
by his own hands, and dedicated the building with a 
sermon on Hosea x, 12, " Sow to yourselves in 
righteousness, reap in mercy, break up your fallow 
ground, for it is time to seek the Lord, till he come 
and reign righteousness upon you." The population 
of the city was about twenty thousand, not too large 
for a general recognition of the fact that Methodism 
had now its monumental edifice, however humble, 
in the midst of them, and John-street chapel has 



EAELY PKOGRESS IK AMERICA. 



75 



ever since been, not only a sacred memorial of tlie 
denomination, but lias become one of the most ven- 
erable monuments of the city. It was immediately 
thronged with hearers, and Embury and Webb were 
its diligent preachers. In about half a year after 
its dedication an American correspondent of "Wesley 
wrote, " the Lord carries on a very great work by 
those two men." 

Webb made frequent excursions to other parts of 
the country, and soon became the principal founder 
of American Methodism. He spent some time 
preaching at Jamaica, Long Island, where at least 

twenty-four persons received justifying grace." 
He passed often through New Jersey and formed 
Societies in its chief towns. He was the first Meth- 
odist who preached in Philadelphia, where, in 1767 
or 1768, he formed a " class" of seven members, in 
a sail loft, which, as in New York and later in 
Baltimore, was for some time the only temple of the 
infant cause. His zeal and liberality led to the 
purchase, in 1770, of St. George's Church, the first 
Methodist chapel of the city. In 1769 he founded 
Methodism in Delaware, preaching in Newcastle, 
Wilmington, and the forests of the Brandy wine. He 
extended his labors to Baltimore; he corresponded 
with Wesley, entreating him to send out missionaries 
to the new field ; after some were sent lie went to 
England to obtain a reinforcement^ and brought 



76 CENTENABY OF AMEKICAINT METHODISM. 

back with him, in ITTS, Eankin and Shadford. He 
plead for America in the British Conference and in 
the Methodist chapels generally. Down to the out- 
break of the Revolution he was, in fine, an apostle 
to the 'New World, devoting his whole time here for 
about nine years to Christian labors. After his final 
return to England he continued to preach with his 
early fervor and power till December 20th, 1Y96, 
when he suddenly died at Bristol, where he sleeps 
beneath the pulpit of Portland Chapel, an edifice 
which was erected chiefly through his own exer- 
tions. A monument on its walls commemorates 
him as " brave— active — courageous — faithful — zeal- 
ous — successful." 

Embury continued to serve the John-street society 
gratuitously till the arrival of "Wesley's first mission- 
aries, in 1769, when he gladly surrendered to them 
its pulpit. He soon after emigrated with a party of 
his fellow-Methodists to the town of Salem, "Wash- 
ington county, New York. It is recorded that he 
there continued to labor as a local preacher, and 
formed a society, chiefiy of his own countrymen, at 
Ashgrove, the first Methodist class within the bounds 
of the Troy Conference which in our day reports 
more than twenty-five thousand communicants, and 
more than two hundred traveling preachers. He 
was held in high estimation by his neighbors, and 
officiated among them not only as a preacher, but as 



EAELY PEOGEESS IN AMEEICA. 77 

a magistrate.'^ While mowing in his field in 1775, 
he injured himself so severely as to die suddenly, 
aged but forty-five years, " greatly beloved and 
much lamented," says Asbury. He was buried on 
the neighboring farm of his Palatine friend, Peter 
Switzer. After reposing fifty-seven years in his soli- 
tary grave without a memorial, his remains were 
disinterred with solemn ceremonies, and borne by a 
large procession to the Ashgrove burial groimd, 
where their resting-place is marked by a monument, 
recording that he "was the first to set in motion a 
train of measures which resulted in the founding of 
John-street Church, the cradle of American Meth- 
odism, and the introduction of a system which has 
beautified the earth with salvation, and increased 
the joys of heaven." Some of his family emigrated 
to Upper Canada, and, with the family of Barbara 
Heck, were among the founders of Methodism in 
that province. 

About the time that Embury and Webb were 
laying the foundations of the denomination in New 
York, Robert Strawbridge was inaugurating it in 
Maryland. Like Embury, he also was an Irishman, 
and was characterized by the native ardor of his 
countrymen. He was eloquent, and a melodious 

* "In a map (now before me) of the Province of New York, copied 
from a London map dated 17 79, that locality is laid off as a manor, 
bearing the name of Embury." — Rev. P. P. Earrower to the Author, 



78 CENTEIS'ARY OF AMERICAN METHODISM. 

singer; he loved adventure and travel, and as an 
evangelist went to and fro preaching niglit and day. 
He arrived in this conntry at some time between 
1760 and 1765, and settled on " Sam's Creek/' in 
Frederick connty, Maryland, which had but recently 
been reclaimed from the perils of savage invasion. 
He opened his house for preaching ; formed in it a 
Methodist society ; and, not long after, built the 
^^Log Meeting-house" on Sam's Creek, about a mile 
from his home. He buried beneath its pulpit two 
of his children. It was a rude structure, twenty-two 
feet square, and, though long occupied, was never 
finished, but remained without windows, door, or 
floor. "The logs were sawed on one side for a 
door- way, and holes were made on the other three 
sides for windows." He became virtually an itiner- 
ant, journeying about in not only his own large 
county, (then comprehending three later counties,) 
but in Eastern Maryland, Delaware, Pennsylvania, 
and Virginia ; preaching with an ardor and a fluency 
which surprised his hearers, and drew them in mul- 
titudes to his rustic assemblies. He seemed disposed 
literally to let the morrow, if not indeed the day, 
take care of itself. His frequent calls to preach in 
distant parts of the country required so much of 
his time that his family were likely to suffer in his 
absence, so that it became a question with him 
" Who will keep the wolf from my own door while 



EARLY PROGRESS IN AMERICA. 



79 



I am abroad seeking after the lost sheep?" His 
neighbors^ appreciating bis generous zeal and self- 
sacrifice, agreed to take care of hie little farm^ 
gratuitously, in bis absence. The Sam's Creek Soci- 
ety, consisting at first of but twelve or fifteen per- 
sons, was a fountain of good influence to the county 
and the state. It early gave four or five preachers 
to the itinerancy. Strawbridge founded Methodism 
in Baltimore and Harford counties. The first Soci- 
ety in the former was formed by him at the house 
of Daniel Evans, near the city, and the first chapel 
of the county was erected by it. The first native 
Methodist preacher of the continent, Richard Owen, 
was one of his converts in this county ; a man 
who labored faithfully and successfully as a local 
preacher for some years, and who entered the 
itinerancy at last, and died in it. He was long the 
most effective co-laborer of Strawbridge, traveling 
the country in all directions, founding societies, 
and opening the way for the coming itinerants. 
Owen's temperament was congenial with that of 
Strawbridge. He clung to the hearty Irishman with 
tenacious affection, emulated his missionary activity, 
1 1 and at last followed him to the grave, preaching his 
funeral service to a "vast concourse," under a large 
walnut tree. 

Several preachers were rapidly raised up by Straw- 
bridge in his travels in Baltimore and Harford conn- 



80 CENTENARY OF AMERICAN METHODISM. 

ties : Sater Stephenson, l^athan Perigo, Richard 
"Webster, and others ; and many laymen, whose fami- 
lies have bee» identified with the whole snbseqiient 
progress of Methodism in their respective localities, 
if not the nation generally. "We have frequent 
intimations of his labors and success in the early 
biographies of Methodism, bnt they are too vague 
to admit of any consecutive narration of his useful 
career. "We discover him now penetrating into 
Pennsylvania, and then arousing the population of 
the Eastern Shore of Maryland ; now bearing the 
standard into Baltimore, and then, with Owen, plant- 
ing it successfully in Georgetown, on the Potomac, 
and in other places in Fairfax county, Virginia ; and 
by the time that the regular itinerancy comes effect- 
ively into operation in Maryland, a band of preach- 
ers, headed by such men as "Watters, Gatch, Bowham, 
Haggerty, Durbin, Garrettson, seem to have been 
prepared, directly or indirectly, through his instru- 
mentality, for the more methodical prosecution of the 
great cause. We find his own name in the Minutes 
in 1773 and 1775 as an itinerant. We trace him 
at last to the upper part of Long Green, Balti- 
more county, where an opulent and generous public 
citizen. Captain Charles Eidgely, who admired his 
character and sympathized with his poverty, gave 
him a farm, free of rent, for life. It was while 
residing here, " under the shadow of Hampton," his 



EAELY PKOGEESS IX A]!J:EEICA. 



81 



benefactor's mansion, that, in one of his visiting 
rounds to his spiritual children, he was taken sick 
at the house of Joseph "Wheeler, and died in great 
peace;" probably in the summer of 1781. Owen, as 
has been remarked, preached his funeral sermon in 
the open air, to a great throng, under a tree at the 
north-west corner of the house." Among the con- 
course were a number of his old Christian neighbors, 
worshipers in the Log Chapel," to whom he had 
been a Pastor in the wilderness ; they bore him to 
the tomb, singing as they marched one of those rap- 
turous lyrics with which Charles Wesley taught the 
primitive Methodists to triumph over the grave. He 
sleeps in an orchard of the friend at whose house he 
died — one of his own converts — under a tree, from 
the foot of which can be seen the great city which 
claims him as its jMethodistic aj^ostle, and which, ever 
since his day, has been pre-eminent among American 

communities for its Methodistic strength and zeal. 

6 



EABLY EVANGELISTS AND MISSIONAKIES. 83 



CHAPTER III. 

EARLY EYAXGELISTS AXD MISSIONARIES. 

The news of the success of Embury, "Webb, and 
Strawbridge readied England and excited no little 
interest. "Wesley was pondering tbe expediency of 
sending out missionaries to enter the opening doors ; 
but meanwhile some zealous evangelists, impatient of 
delay, hastened as volunteers to the new field. The 
first of them was Eobert TTilliams, a local preacher, 
who went on board the packet for America, with his 
saddle-bags, a bottle of milk, and a loaf of bread, but 
no money for the expense of the voyage. A Meth- 
odist fellow-passenger paid the latter. On arriving 
in Xew York (1769) Williams immediately began his 
mission in Embury's Chapel, and thenceforward, for 
about six years, was one of the most effective pioneers 
of American Methodism : " the first Methodist min- 
ister in America that published a book, the first that 
married, the first that located, and the first that died.'' 
We have but little knowledge of his career, but suf- 
ficient to prove that he had the fire and heroism of 
the original itinerancy. He was stationed at John- 
street Church some time in 1771. He labored suc- 
cessfully with Strawbridge in founding the new cause 



84 CEKTENARY OF AMERICAN METHODISM. 



in Baltimore county. In the first published Confer* 
ence Minutes he is appointed to Petersburgh, Ya. 
^•He was the apostle of Methodism in Yirginia." 
He followed Strawbridge in founding it in 1772 on 
the Eastern Shore of Maryland. In the same year 
he appeared in ISTorfolk, Ya. Taking his stand on 
the steps of the Court-house, he collected a congre- 
gation by singing a hymn, and then preached with 
a plainness and energy, so novel among them, that 
they supposed he was insane. 'No one invited him 
home, in a community noted for hospitality: they 
were afraid of his supposed lunacy ; but on hearing 
him a second time their opinion was changed. He 
was received to their houses, and soon after a society 
was formed in the city, the germ of the denomination 
in the state. In 1773 he traveled in various parts of 
Yirginia. Jarrett, an apostolic churchman, and after- 
ward a notable friend of the Methodists, encouraged 
his labors, and entertained him a week at his parson- 
age. "Williams formed the first circuit of Yirginia. 
A signal example of his usefulness (incalculable in 
its results) was the conversion of Jesse Lee. He was 
" the spiritual father " of this heroic itinerant, the 
founder of Methodism in New England. " Mr. Lee's 
parents opened their doors for him to preach. They 
were converted. Two of their sons became Method- 
ist ministers, and their other children shared largely 
in the blessings of the Gospel, which he proclaimed 



EAELY EYAIS^GELISTS AND MISSIONARIES, 85 



with sucli flaining zeal, holy ardor, and great success." 
The religious interest excited by Williams's labors 
soon extended into North Carolina, and opened the 
way for the southward advancement of Methodism. 
He bore back to Philadelphia, says Asbury, a " flam- 
ing account of the work in Yirginia : many of the 
people were ripe for the Gospel and ready to receive 
us." He returned, taking with him a young man 
named William Watters, who was thus ushered into 
the ministry, and has ever since been honored as the 
first native American itinerant."^ Leaving him in the 
field already opened, Williams went himself south- 
westward, " as Providence opened the way." Sub- 
sequently he bore the cross into IsTorth Carolina. He 
formed a six weeks' circuit from Petersburgh south- 
ward, over the Roanoke River, some distance into 
that state, and thus became the " apostle of Method- 
ism " in North Carolina, as well as Virginia. Like 
most of the itinerants of that day, he located after 
his marriage, and settled between Norfolk and Suf- 
folk, where, and in all the surrounding regions, he con- 
tinued to preach till his death, v/hich occurred on the 
26th of September, 1775. Asbury was now in the 
country, and at hand to bury the zealous pioneer. 
He preached his funeral sermon, and records in his 

* Owen was the first native Methodist preacher, but he did not 
join the conference or regular itinerancy till after Watters had been 
received. 



86 CENTENARY OF AMEBJCAN METHODISM. 

Journal the highest possible eulogy on him. He 
has been a very nseful, laborious man. The Lord 
gave many seals to his ministry. Perhaps no one in 
America has been an instrument of awakening so 
many souls as God has awakened by him." " He 
was a plain 5 pointed preacher, indefatigable in his 
labors/' says a historian of the Church. "That 
pious servant of the Lord," says Watters, his young 
fellow-traveler in the South. " The name of Robert 
Williams," says our earliest annalist, " still lives in 
the minds of many of his spiritual children. He 
proved the goodness of his doctrine by his tears in 
public and by his life in private. He spared no pains 
in order to do good — standing on a stump, block, 
or log, he sung, prayed, and preached to hundreds " 
as they passed along from their public resorts or 
churches. " It was common with him after preach- 
ing to ask most of the people, whom he spoke to, some 
question about the welfare of their souls, and to 
encourage them to serve God." He printed and cir- 
culated Wesley's Sermons, " spreading them through 
the country, to the great advantage of religion : they 
opened the way in many places for our preachers, 
where these had never been before. Though dead^ 
he yet speaketh by his faithful preaching and holy 
walk." Such was the evangelist who was the first 
practically to respond to the appeals from America 
to England. His grave is unknown, but he will 



EAELY EVANGELISTS AKD MISSIONARIES. 87 

live in the history of the Church forever, associated 
with Embury, "Webb, and Strawbridge. He did 
for it, in Yirginia and ISTorth Carolina, what Em- 
bury did for it in New York, "Webb in New Jer- 
sey, Pennsylvania, and Delaware, and Strawbridge 
in Maryland. 

Not long after Williams's arrival, John King also 
came from England. He opened his mission in the 
Potter's Field of Philadelphia. He extended his 
labors into Delaware, and soon was co-operating 
with Strawbridge and Williams, in Maryland. He 
was the first Methodist who preached in the city of 
Baltimore. His first pulpit there was a blacksmith's 
block at the intersection of Front and French streets. 
His next sermon was from a table at the junction of 
Baltimore and Calvert streets. His courage was tested 
on this occasion, for it was the militia training-day, 
and the drunken crowd charged upon him so effect- 
ually as to upset the table and lay him prostrate 
on the earth. He knew, however, that the noblest 
preachers of Methodism had suffered like trials in 
England, and he maintained his ground courageous- 
ly. The commander of the troops, an Englishman, 
recognized him as a fellow-countryman, and, defend- 
ing him, restored order, and allowed him to proceed. 
Victorious over the mob, he made so favorable an 
impression as to be invited to preach in the English 
Church of St. Paul's, but improved that opportunity 



88 CENTEXAEY OF AMEKICAK METHODISM. 

witii such fervor as to receive no repetition of the 
courtesy. Methodism had now, however, effectively 
entered Baltimore, down to our day its chief citadel in 
the new world. In five years after King stood there 
on the blacksmith's block, it was strong enough to 
entertain the Annual Conference of the denomination. 
King was afterward received into the regular itiner- 
ancy. He was a member of the first Conference 
of 1773, and was appointed to New Jersey. He 
^oon after entered Yirginia, and with two other 
preachers traveled Robert Williams's new six weeks' 
circuit, extending from Petersburgh into North Caro- 
lina. " They were blessed among the people, and a 
most remarkable revival of religion prevailed in 
most of the circuit," says the cotemporary historian 
of the Church ; " Christians were united and devoted 
to God ; sinners were greatly alarmed : the preachers 
had large congregations ; indeed, the Lord wrought 
wonders among us that year." Still later we trace 
him again to New Jersey ; he located during the 
Revolution, but in 1801 reappeared in the itinerant 
ranks in Yirginia. He located finally in 1803. One 
of our historical authorities assures us that " he was 
a truly prions, zealous, and useful man, and so con- 
tinued till his death, which occurred a few years 
since, at a very advanced age, in the vicinity of 
Raleigh, N. C. He was probably the only survivor, 
at the time of his decease, of all the preachers of 



EAELY EYAKGELISTS AND MISSIOjSTAEIES. 89 



ante-reYolutionaiy date." John King did valiant 
service in our early struggles. He seems, however, 
to have been often led away by his excessive ardor ; 
he used his stentorian voice to its utmost capacity ; 
and it is said that when he preached in St. Paul's, 
Baltimore, he made the dust fly from the old vel- 
vet cushion." Wesley, who probably knew him in 
England, and corresponded with him in America, 
calls him stubborn and headstrong." 

Webb's correspondence with Wesley at last pro- 
cured the appointment of regular itinerant preach- 
ers to America. On the 3d of August, 1769, Wesley 
announced in the Conference at Leeds, " We have a 
pressing call from our brethren of ISTew York (who 
have built a preaching house) to come over and help 
them. Who is willing to go ? " Richard Boardman 
and Joseph Pilmoor responded, and were sent. They 
arrived at Philadelphia in October, 1Y69. 

Boardman had been in Wesley's itinerancy about 
six years, and was now about thirty-one years old. 
Wesley describes him as "pious, sensible, greatly 
beloved." Asbury says, he was '^kind, loving, 
worthy, truly amiable, and entertaining, of child- 
like temper." An old writer on Methodism says, 
he was " a man of great piety, of amiable disposi- 
tion, and great understanding." His companion, 
Pilmoor, was converted in his early youth, was 
educated at Wesley's Kings wood school, and had 



90 CENTEISTAEY OF AMEKICAlSr METHODISM. 



now itinerated about four years. He was a man of 
deep piety, of good insight, and mucli courage, of a 
dignified presence and ready discourse. 

Wliitefield saluted them gladly in America and 
bade them Godspeed. He had prepared the way 
for them by awakening a religious interest through- 
out the colonies. He had made his thirteenth 
passage of the Atlantic, and the next year after 
their arrival he died at Is^ewburyport, Mass. He 
had finished his extraordinary career, and left the 
field white for the harvest. The Methodist itiner- 
ants were now to reap it. Boardman and Pilmoor 
continued to labor in the country about four years, 
from Boston to Savannah. 

In 1770 "America" is recorded for the first time 
in "Wesley's printed "Minutes of Conference," with 
four preachers, Boardman, Pilmoor, Williams, and 
King. In the following year it is recorded with 
three hundred and sixteen Church members. In the 
conference of 1771 Wesley again called for volun- 
teers for the new field. " Our brethren in America," 
he said, " call aloud for help ; who will go ? " Five 
responded, and two were sent: Francis Asbury 
(afterward bishop) and Eichard Wright. Of the 
latter we know but little. He had traveled but one 
year in the ministry before he came to America ; he 
labored, with more or less success, from I^ew York 
to Norfolk for three or four years, and then returned 



EAELY EVANGELISTS AKD MISSIONAEIES. 91 



to England. But Francis Asbury was destined to 
be tbe most historical, the representative character 
of American Methodism. He was now a young man 
about twenty-six years of age. He had been in the 
traveling ministry only about five years, and but 
four years on the catalogue of regular appointments, 
but had seen hard service on Bedfordshire, Colches- 
ter, and "Wiltshire circuits. He was studious, some- 
what introspective, with a thoughtfulness which was 
tinged at times with melancholy. His was one of 
those minds which can find rest only in labor; 
designed for great work, and therefore endowed 
with a restless instinct for it. He was an incessant 
preacher, of singular practical directness; was ever 
in motion, on foot or on horseback, over his long 
circuits; a rigorous disciplinarian, disposed to do 
everything by method; a man of few words, and 
those always to the point ; of quick and accurate 
insight into character; of a sobriety, not to say 
severity, of temperament, which might have been 
repulsive had it not been softened by a profound 
religious humility, for his soul, ever aspiring to the 
highest virtue, was ever complaining within itself 
over its shortcomings. His mind had eminently a 
military cast. He never lost his self-possession, and 
could therefore seldom be surprised. He seemed 
not to know fear, and never yielded to discourage- 
ment in a course sanctioned by his faith or con- 



92 CEKTENARY OF AMERICAN METHODISM. 



science. He could plan sagacionsly, seldom pausing 
to consider theories of wisdom or policy, but as sel- 
dom failing in practical prudence. The rigor which 
his disciplinary predilections imposed upon others 
was so exemplified by himself, that his associates or 
subordinates, instead of revolting from it, accepted 
it as a challenge of heroic emulation. Discerning 
men could not come into his presence without per- 
ceiving that his soul was essentially heroic, and that 
nothing committed to his agency could fail, if it 
depended upon conscientiousness, prudence, courage, 
labor, and persistence. " Who," says one who knew 
him intimately, " who of us could be in his company 
without feeling impressed with a reverential awe 
and profound respect ? It was almost impossible 
to approach him without feeling the strong influence 
of his spirit and presence. There was something in 
this remarkable fact almost inexplicable and inde- 
scribable. "Was it owing to the strength and eleva- 
tion of his spirit, the sublime conceptions of his 
mind, the dignity and majesty of his soul, or the 
sacred profession with which he was clothed, as an 
embassador of God, invested with divine authority ? 
But so it was; it appeared as though the very 
atmosphere in which he moved gave unusual sensa- 
tions of diffidence and humble restraint to the bold- 
est confidence of man." "Withal, his appearance was 
in his favor. In his most familiar portrait he has 



EAELY EVANGELISTS AND MISSIONAEIES. 93 



the war-worn aspect of a military veteran ; but in 
earlier life his frame was robust, his countenance 
full^ fresh/ and expressive of generous, if not re- 
fined, feelings. He was attentive to his apparel, 
and always maintained an easy dignity of manners, 
which commanded the respect, if not the affection, 
of his associates. The appeals from the American 
Methodists had reached him in his rural circuits, for 
he had never left his ministerial work to attend the 
Annual Conference. Two months before the session 
of 1771 his mind had been impressed with the 
thought that Am^erica was his destined field of 
labor. He saw in the new world a befitting sphere 
for his apostolic aspirations. The great qualities, 
manifested in his subsequent career were inher- 
ent in the man, and "Wesley could not fail to per- 
ceive them. Pie not only accepted him for America, 
but, notwithstanding his youth, appointed him, at 
the ensuing conference, at the head of the American 
ministerial itinerancy. 

His labors in the 'New "World were, if possible, 
greater than those of Wesley in the old ; he traveled 
more miles a year and preached as often. On 
becoming bishop of the Church, he seemed to 
become ubiquitous throughout the republic. The 
history of Christianity, since the apostolic age, 
affords not a more perfect example of ministerial 
and episcopal devotion than was presented in this 



9'i CENTENARY OF AMERICAN METHODISM. 



great man's life. He preached almost daily for 
more tlian half a century. During most of this 
time he traveled over the continent, with hardly 
an intermission, from north to south and east to 
west, directing the growing hosts of his denomina- 
tion with the skill and authority of a great captain. 
He was ordained bishop of the Methodist Episcopal 
Church when thirty-nine years old, at its organi- 
zation in 1784, when it comprised less than fifteen 
thousand members and but about eighty preachers ; 
and he fell in 1816, in his seventy-first year, at the 
head of an army of more than two hundred and 
eleven thousand members, and more than seven 
hundred itinerant preachers. It has been estimated 
that in the forty-five years of his American ministry 
he preached about sixteen thousand five hundred 
sermons, or at least one a day, and traveled about 
two hundred and seventy thousand miles, or six 
thousand a year; that he presided in no less than 
two hundred and twenty-four annual conferences, 
and ordained more than four thousand preachers. 
He was, in fine, one of those men of anomalous 
greatness, in estimating whom the historian is 
compelled to use terms which would be irrele- 
vant, as hyperbole, to most men with which he 
has to deal. His discrimination of character was 
marvelous; his administrative talents would have 
placed him, in civil government or in war, by the 



EARLY EVANGELISTS AND MISSIONARIES. 95 



side of Eichelieu or Cesar^ and his success placed 
him unquestionably at the head of the leading char- 
acters of American ecclesiastical history. No one 
man has done more for Christianity in the western 
hemisphere. His attitude in the pulpit was solemn 
and dignified, if not graceful; his voice was sono- 
rous and commanding, and his discourses were often 
attended with bursts of eloquence "which spoke a 
soul full of God, and, like a mountain torrent, swept 
all before it." Notwithstanding his advanced age 
and shattered health he continued his travels to the 
last, till he had to be aided up the pulpit steps, and 
to sit while preaching. On the 24th of March, 1816, 
when unable to either walk or stand, he preached 
his last sermon at Richmond, Va., and on the 31st 
died at Spottsylvania, Ya. "With Wesley, "White- 
field, and Coke, he ranks as one of the four greatest 
representative men of the Methodistic movement. 
In American Methodism he ranks immeasurably 
above all his cotemporaries and successors, in his- 
torical importance, and his eventful life afibrds the 
chief materials for the history of the Methodist 
Episcopal Church during half a century. 

At Wesley's conference for 17Y2 Captain Webb 
made an eloquent appeal for recruits for the minis- 
try in America, and obtained Thomas Rankin and 
; George Shadford. The former was a thorough 
i "disciplinarian," a man of "iron will/' and did 



96 CENTEKAEY OF AMEKICA^T METHODISM. 



good service in the colonial societies, by his general 
enforcement of discipline. Shadford was a preacher 
of extraordinary nnction, the "reyivalist" of the 
times. Each of them traveled and labored inde- 
fatigably from New York to i^orth Carolina, till 
the breaking ont of the Revolutionary war, when 
they returned to England. 

Meanwhile other English missionaries arrived : 
James Dempster, Martin Eodda, and William 
Glendenning; but the alarm of the approaching 
revolution dispersed the foreign laborers. Most of 
them returned to their native country, and there 
resumed their evangelical travels. A native min- 
istry, however, had now providentially been raised 
up, consisting of gigantic men, true apostles, pecul- 
iarly fitted for the further work of the evangelization 
of the continent. Watters, Hatch, Abbott, Mann, 
Lee, Garrettson, Dickins, Dromgoole, and others had 
either entered the itinerant ranks or were about to 
do so, and during the storm of the war, while Asbury 
alone of their foreign coadjutors remained, and he 
much of the time in concealment, they bore the 
standard of the cross forward, sometimes into the 
very camps of the army. The cradle of Methodism 
was in fact incessantly rocked by the revolutionary 
storm, and it was the only form of religion that 
advanced in America during that dark period. In 
the year (1760) in which Embury and his fellow- 



EARLY E7AKGELISTS AJSTD MISSIONARIES. 97 



Palatines arrived, the Lords of Trade advised the 
taxing of the colonies, and the agitations of the 
latter commenced. The next year James Otis, the 
"morning star" of the Revolution, began his appeals 
in Boston for the rights of the people. The follow- 
ing year the whole continent was shaken by the 
royal interference with the colonial judiciary, espe- 
cially at IvTew York; and Otis attacked, in the 
Massachusetts legislature, the English design of tax- 
ation as planned by Charles Townshend. Offense 
followed offense from the British ministry, and surge 
followed surge in the agitations of the colonies. The 
year preceding that in which the John-street Church 
was formed is memorable as the date of the Stamp 
Act; the Church was founded amid the storm of 
excitement which compelled the repeal of the act in 
1766 — the recognized epoch of American Methodism. 
The next year a new act of taxation was passed 
which stirred the colonies from Maine to Georgia, 
and " The Farmer's Letters," by John Dickinson of 
Pennsylvania, appeared — ''the foundation rock of 
American politics and American statesmanship." In 
two years more the Massachusetts legislature "plan- 
ned resistance." Samuel Adams approved of mak- 
ing the "appeal to heaven," of war, and British 
ships and troops were ordered to Boston. The first 
Annual Conference of American Methodism was 
held in the stormy year (1773) in which the British 



98 CENTENAEY OF AMERICAi^' METHODISM. 

ministry procured the act respecting tea, wliicli was 
followed by such resistance that the ships bringing 
that luxury were not allowed to land their cargoes 
in Philadelphia and ISTew York ; were only allowed 
to store them, not to sell them, in South Carolina, 
and were boarded in Boston harbor and the freight 
thrown into the sea. In the next year the Boston 
Port Bill inflamed all the colonies ; " a General Con- 
gress " was held ; Boston was blockaded ; Massachu- 
setts was in a " general rising then came the year 
of Lexington, arid Concord, and Bunker Hill, intro- 
ducing the " "War of Pevolution," with its years of 
conflict and suffering. Thus Methodism began its 
history in America in the storm of the Kevolution ; 
its English missionaries were arriving or departing 
amid the ever increasing political agitation ; it was 
cradled in the hurricane, and hardened into vigorous 
youth, by the severities of the times, till it stood 
forth, the next year after the definitive treaty of 
peace, the organized ^'Methodist Episcopal Church 
in the United States of America.'' Its almost con- 
tinual growth in such apparently adverse circum- 
stances is one of the miracles of religious history. 
In 1776 it was equal, in both the number of its 
preachers and congregations, to the Lutherans, the 
German Eeformed, the Peformed Dutch, the Asso- 
ciate Church, the Moravians, or the Roman Catho- 
lics. At the close of the war it ranked fourth or 



EARLY EYAXGELISTS AlsB MISSI0:N"ARIES. 99 



fifth among the dozen recognized Christian denomi- 
nations of the country. During the war it had 
more than quadrupled both its ministry and its 
members. It was a special providential provision 
for the religious wants of America, and was there- 
fore initiated and trained in the trying circumstances 
which gave birth and training to the new nation. 



BAPID PROaEESS IN AMEEICA. 101 



CHAPTER lY. 

EAPID PROGEESS OF :METH0DIS:M I]S' AMEEICA. 

Methodism broke out almost simultaneously, as 
we have seen, in both tbe nortli and middle of the 
the opening continent. By the end of the Eevolu- 
tionary war it had laid securely its foundations in 
both regions. From these its first humble positions 
it was now rapidly to advance till it should dot the 
whole country with its temples, and growing with 
the growth of the population, become the predomi- 
nant religious faith of the nation. Its history hence- 
forth develops too rapidly and largely to admit of 
more than a few further allusions in this part of our 
volume ; nor are its details indeed required by the 
plan of this brief work ; for its Churches are about to 
commemorate its origin in America, and thus far its 
origin has been sketched."^ In other sections of the 
volume we shall have occasion to present much of its 
remaining history in outlines of its- Disciplinary and 

* For its fuller history I must take the hberty of referring the reader 
to "The History of the Eeligious Moyement, etc., called Methodism," 
3 vols., and "The History of the Methodist Episcopal Church," etc., 
2 vols., works in which I have endeavored to gather most of the re- 
mains of its annals, and from which I have condensed much of the 
present volume. 



102 CENTENAEY OF AMERICAN METHODISM. 



Doctrinal systems. A few additional chronological 
and statistical statements must here suffice. 

In 1773 was held its first Annual Conference, in 
the city of Philadelphia, consisting of 10 preachers, 
and reporting 1,160 members of society. In 1781 
It crossed the AUeghanies and began that grand 
work of western evangelization, which has become 
the most important portion of its subsequent his- 
tory, giving birth to the "old Western Confer- 
ence," which extended from the ITorthern Lakes 
to ]N"atchez, and every one of whose original "dis- 
tricts " comprehends in our day several conferences. 
There are now, west of the AUeghanies, 33 confer- 
ences, 2,816 traveling preachers, (besides superannu- 
ates,) and nearly 438,000 members, not including 
the Southern and other branches of Methodism.*^ 

In 1784 its first General Conference was held in 
Baltimore for the organization of " the Methodist 
Episcopal Church in the United States of America," 
Dr. Thomas Coke having been ordained by Wesley 
a bishop, and Richard Whatcoat and Thomas Yasey 
elders, for the purpose of consecrating Francis 
Asbury a bishop over the new Church, and of 
ordaining other preachers to the orders of elder 
and deacon, that the sacraments might be adminis- 
tered among the scattered Societies. A system 
of government, with its Liturgy, Articles of Re- 

* Compare Appendix, Table No. Ill, with the Minutes. 



RAPID PROGRESS IN AMERICA. 



103 



ligion. Discipline, Hymn Book, etc., was formally 
adopted, and the denomination thus took prece- 
dence, in its episcopal organization, of the Protest- 
ant Episcopal Chni'ch in the United States. Its 
bishops were the first Protestant bishops of the 
western hemisphere. 

In 1Y85 Freeborn Garrettson extended its labors 
to the northeastern British Provinces; in 1789 Jesse 
Lee extended them into the Isew England States; 
and in 1790 William Losee extended them into 
Upper Canada. In Xew England it was destined 
to become the second religions denomination in 
numerical strength and the first in progress, report- 
ing in onr day about a hundred thousand members, 
nearly a thousand preachers, at least one academy 
for each of its conferences, a university, and a theo- 
logical school. In Canada it was destined to raise 
up many mighty evangelists, to keep pace with 
emigration, and reach westward* to the Pacific, and 
eastward till it should blend with the Methodism 
planted by Coughlan, M'Geary, Black, and Garrett- 
son on the Atlantic coast; Indian missions were 
to arise; Methodist chapels, many of them elegant 
structures, to adorn the country; a Book Concern, 
periodical organs, a university, and academies be 
provided ; and Methodism, as in the United States, 
to become numerically the predominant faith of the 
people apart from the Church of England,; its dif- 



104 CENTEKAEY OF AMEEICAIST METHODISM. 



ferent branclies^ reporting in onr day more than 
a hundred thousand members and nearly one thou- 
sand traveling preachers. 

Before the end of the century Methodism had 
planted its standards from Nova Scotia to Georgia, 
from the Atlantic coast to the furthest western 
line of emigration. It ended the century with 
eight Annual Conferences, or Synods, with three 
bishops. Coke, Asbury, and "Whatcoat, with two 
hundred and eighty-seven traveling preachers, be- 
sides hundreds of local preachers, and with nearly 
sixty-five thousand church members, of whom more 
than thirteen thousand were Africans. In the first 
Annual Conference, 1773, all the preachers save one, 
"William "Watters, were foreigners ; but after the 
first General Conference (1784) Wesley dispatched 
no "missionaries" to America. All his former mis- 
sionaries, except Asbury and "Whatcoat, had returned 
to Europe, or located ; but American Methodism 
had now its native ministry, numerous and vigorous. 
Besides Asbury, Coke, and Whatcoat, it still retained 
many of the great evangelists it had thus far raised up, 
Garrettson, Lee, Abbott, O'Kelly, Crawford, Burke, 
Poythress, Bruce, Breeze, Reed, Cooper, Everett, 
Willis, Dickins, Ware, Brush, Moriarty, Eoberts, 
Hull, Losee, and others. A host of mighty men, 

* The Canada and other Wesleyan Conferences, and the Methodist 
Episcopal and New Connection Churches. 



EAPID PROGRESS IN AMERICA. 105 



who were yet young and obscure, had already joined 
these standard-bearers : M^Kendree, George, (botb 
afterward bishops,) Eoszel, iSToUey, M'Gee, Smith, Gib- 
son, M'Henry, Kobler, Fleming, Cook, Scott, "Wells, 
Pickering, Sharp, Bostwick, M'Claskey, M'Combs, 
Bartine, Morrell, Sargent, Taylor, Hunt, and scores 
more. These were soon to be followed, or rather 
joined, by another host of as strong if not stronger 
representative men : Eoberts, Hedding, Soule, Bangs, 
Merwin, Capers, Pierce, Winans, Kennon, Kenneday, 
Douglass, Eedman, Thornton, Finley, Cartwright, 
and many others equal to them ; and amid an army 
of such were to arise in due time, to give a new 
intellectual development to the ministry, such char- 
acters as Elliott, Enter, Emory, Fisk, Summerfield, 
Bascom, Olin, and others, some surviving to our 
day, men of not only denominational but of national 
recognition. 

The Church retained vividly the consciousness and 
spirit of its original mission as a revival of apost- 
olic religion. Its ministry was remarkable for its 
unction and preached with demonstration and with 
power ; its social and public worship was character- 
ized by animation and energy; it was continually 
promoting ^'revivals" and "reformations," extending 
them, not only over conferences or single states, but 
sometimes simultaneously over much of the nation. 
Therefore was its growth rapid beyond parallel ; the 



106 CENTENARY OF AMERICAN METHODISM. 



665OOO members with which it began our century, 
had swelled by the year 1825 to nearly 350,000, its 
287 preachers to more than 1,300. 

By the year 18M, when it was divided by the 
secession of the South, it comprised more than 
1,1Y0,000 members, and more than 4,600 traveling 
preachers ; it had gained, in the preceding four years, 
430,897 members and 1,325 preachers, an average of 
107,724 members and 331 preachers per year. Thus, 
in the hour of its most gigantic strength and capacity 
for usefulness, when its arms could be outstretched to 
the ends of the world with the blessings of the Gos- 
pel of peace, was the mighty Colossus broken in twain. 

But the loyal Church fast recovered its strength 
and moved onward, so that by 1850 it reported nearly 
690,000 members, 4,129 traveling and 5,420 local 
preachers. In 1860 it reported 994,447 members, 
6,987 traveling and 8,188 local preachers; and the 
two bodies, North and South, enrolled 1,743,515 
members, 9,771 traveling and 13,541 local preachers. 

This hundredth year of the denomination wit- 
nesses in the Methodist Episcopal Church alone 60 
conferences, 928,320 members, 6,821 itinerant preach- 
ers, 8,205 local preachers, 10,015 churches, valued, 
with their 2,948 parsonages, at $26,883,076.^ In- 
cluding both branches of Methodism, l^"orth and 

* Minutes of 1864, the latest published before the present volume 
goes to press. 



EAPID PEOaRESS UST AMERICA. 107 



South, the aggregate is 15628,388 members, 9,421 
traveling, and 13,205 local preachers."^ Its congre- 
gations are among the largest in the country, and its 
terms of Church membership are among the most 
stringent known in Protestant Christendom. It is 
a moderate calculation that there are three members 
of its congregations to one of its communicants, in- 
cluding its numerous children and youth; at this 
rate the aggregate population, more or less habit- 
ually under the influence of its two leading Churches, 
North and South, can hardly be less than 6,Y10,000 ; 
it is more likely about 7,000,000, more than one 
fifth of the population of the nation. 

Adding the other branches of Methodism, there 
must now be in the United States 1,950,000 members 
and 12,000 traveling preachers religiously training, 
more or less, a population of 7,800,000 souls. In 
the whole western hemisphere, including the "West 
Indies and British North America, there are at least 
2,100,000 Methodists. 

In the four Middle states. New York, Pennsyl- 
vania, New Jersey, and Delaware, " Methodism had 
in 1850, according to the United States census, 2,556 
churches, while the four remaining evangelical and 
leading denominations — the Baptist, Congregation- 
alists. Episcopalian, and Presbyterian — had an aggre- 

* The latest Southern reports are for 1860. The war has doubtless 
affected them, as the above figures show it has Xorthern Methodism. 



108 CEKTENARY OF AMEBICAK METHODISM. 

gate of only S,600^ showing that Methodism holds 
about three quarters of the popular power of evangel- 
ical Christianity in that central division of the coun- 
try, where the leading state and the metropolitan city 
of the continent are found. In the ten Southern states 
and the District of Columbia, the above-named de- 
nominations have 4,458 churches, the Methodists 
5,015, which gives Methodism an excess of several 
hundred churches over this combined evangelical 
competition; and in the eleven Western states, the 
comparison stands : the four denominations, 4,899 
churches ; Methodism, 4,863, which, with the statis- 
tics of the territories compiled since the census of 
1850, will give to the youngest leading religious body 
in the land a relative ascendancy still greater than in 
the states of the South. The sum of it all is, that 
in New England, Methodism is rapidly gaining on 
the ancestral religion ; that in the Middle states, it 
nearly balances the four great evangelical denomina- 
tions ; that in the states of the South, it more than 
balances them ; that in the great "West, which is soon 
to wield a weightier influence than all the other states 
combined, it has taken a still stronger position." ^ 

* Tefft's Methodism, p. 199. 



ITS PRACTICAL SYSTEM. 



109 



CHAPTEE Y. 

ITS PRACTICAL SYSTEM. 

The historical answer to the question. What 
is Methodism? is not complete without a more 
precise account of its practical or "Disciplinary" 
system. 

The first organic form which the new movement 
took was that of the " United Society," founded by 
"Wesley in connection with the " Old Foundry," Lon- 
don. The model of this elementary organization was 
before him in the Fetter Lane and other societies 
to which he had resorted in the metropolis. These 
Societies rapidly multiplied throughout the country. 
In their maturer form, they were composed of mem- 
bers, and probationers (six nionths on trial), divided 
into classes of twelve or more persons, and meeting 
weekly, under the care of a Class-leader, for religious 
counsel and the contribution of money for the sup- 
port of the Church according to the General Rules. 
The leaders were met at first weekly, afterward 
monthly, by the preacher. 

The Class Meeting became one of the most import- 
tant institutions of Methodism: the basis of its 
financial economy and the germ of almost every 



110 CENTENARY OF AMERICAN METHODISM. 

new Society formed in its rapid progress. The two 
Wesleys prepared tlie document, known now throngli- 
ont tlie Methodist world as "The General Eules/' 
and prescribing the " only one condition previously 
required of those who desire admission into these 
Societies."^ It is distinguished by its practical 
thoroughness, and, equally, by the absence of any 
dogmatic requisitions. As presenting the " only " 
terms of membership in the Church, it is a striking 
proof of what we have assumed to be the stand-point, 
the providential design of Methodism, namely, the 
revival and propagation of spiritual religion ; not 
of sectarian ecclesiasticism, or sectarian theology. 

Each Society has its Trustees, holding the chapel 
property; its Stewards, having charge of its other 
finances ; and, in many cases; its licensed Exhorters 
and Local Preachers, men who pursue secular voca- 
tions, but labor as public teachers whenever they 
find opportunity. The Exhorters usually graduate 
to the office of Local Preacher, and thence to the 
traveling ministry; this, in fine, is the recruiting 
process of the Annual Conference. Each Society also 
has its " Prayer Meetings," in which its lay talents, 
without respect to sex, are brought into exercise, and 
thereby developed and made subservient to the com- 
mon cause ; its Love-Feasts, derived through the Mora- 
vians, from the primitive Agapse, and held usually 

* See it in Appendix No. I. 



ITS PRACTICAL SYSTEM. 



Ill 



once a quarter ; its Watdi-nights, generally celebrated 
on the last night of the year. 

A group of these Societies form a Circuit, extend- 
ing in some cases five hundred miles, requiring from 
two to six or more weeks to travel around it, and 
supplied by a preacher ''in charge," and two or three 
assistants, who are aided by the Local Preachers ; the 
Class-Leaders maintaining a minute pastoral oversight 
of the Societies during the absence of the itinerants. 

A group of circuits constitute a District, superin- 
tended by a Presiding Elder, who incessantly travels 
his extensive territory, preaching, counseling the 
traveling and Local Preachers and Exhorters, meet- 
ing the official members of the circuit Societies, and 
promoting the interest of the Church in every possi- 
ble way. 

The Quarterly Conference is held by the Presiding 
Elder, in accordance with its title, once in three 
months, on each circuit, and is composed of the 
preachers of the circuit, its local preachers, exhorters, 
leaders, stewards, and Sunday-school superintendents. 
It has, subordinately to the Annual Conference, 
jurisdiction over all the local interests of the circuit : 
its finances, the authorization of its local preachers 
and exhorters, a class of judicial appeals, and the 
recommendation of candidates for the Annual Con- 
ferences. Formerly its exercises were largely, mostly 
indeed, spiritual. It continued about two days, 



112 CENTENABY OF AMEEICAN METHODISM. 



during which there were alnnost continual sessions, 
sermonSj prayer-meetings, or love-feasts. The Meth- 
odist families of the circuit, often from the distance 
of many miles, assembled at it, making it a great 
religious festival. 

A number of districts (with their Quarterly Con- 
ferences) constitute the Annual Conference, com- 
posed of the traveling preachers of the given territory. 
These annual assemblies became imposing occasions. 
A bishop presided ; the preachers, from many miles 
around, usually including several states, were present ; 
hosts of laymen were spectators. There was preach- 
ing in the early morning, in the afternoon, and at 
night. The daily proceedings were introduced with 
religious services, and were characterized by an im- 
pressive religious spirit. They continued usually a 
week, and it was a festal season, gathering the war- 
worn heroes of many distant and hard-fought fields, 
renewing the intimacies of preachers and people, and 
crowned alike by social hospitalities and joyous de- 
votions. They have their particular regulations pre- 
scribed in the Discipline. 

All the Annual Conferences are represented by 
delegates in the General Conference, which meets 
once in four years, and is the supreme assembly of 
the denomination, making its " rules and regula- 
tions," under certain Kestrictive Rules, and revising 
its whole work and interests. Its session usually 



ITS PEACTICAL SYSTEM. 



113 



lasts about four weeks; it is the great jubilee of the 
denomination, and has unquestionably become one of 
the most important ecclesiastical occasions of the 
Christian world. 

Such is a mere glance at the " economy " or practical 
system of Methodism, not altogether as it was under 
Wesley in England, but as it developed and enlarged 
itself in America at and after the Christmas General 
Conference of 1784, when the Church assumed an 
organic form with its series of synodal bodies, extend- 
ing from the fourth of a year to four years, from the 
local circuit to the whole nation ; its series of pastoral 
functionaries. Class-leaders, Exhorters, Local Preach- 
ers, Circuit Preachers, District Preachers or Presid- 
ing Elders, and Bishops whose common diocese was 
the entire country; its Prayer-meetings, Band-meet- 
ings, Love-feasts, and incessant preaching ; its Pitual, 
Articles of Religion, Psalmody, and singularly 
minute moral discipline, as prescribed in its "Gen- 
eral Pules" and ministerial regimen. Its system 
was remarkably precise and consecutive, and, as 
seen in our day by its results, as remarkably effective. 
Time has proved it to be the most efficient of all 
modern religious organizations, not only among the 
dispersed population of a new country, but also in 
the dense communities of an ancient people ; on the 
American frontier, and in the English city, it is found 
efficacious beyond all other ecclesiastical plans, stimu- 



114 CENTEls^ARY OF AMEKICAN METHODISM. 



lating most others, and yet outstripping them. This 
singular system of religious instrumentalities was not 
devised. It was in but few respects the result of 
sagacious foresight ; it grew up spontaneously, and 
Wesley's legislative wisdom shows itself not so much 
in inventing its peculiarities, as in appropriating 
skillfully the means which were providentially pro- 
vided for him. Its elementary parts were evolved 
unexpectedly in the progress of the denomination. 
"Wesley saw that the state of religion throughout the 
English nation required a thorough reform ; God, he 
believed, would provide for whatever was necessary 
to be done in such a necessity, if willing and earnest 
men would attempt to do it. He was ready to at- 
tempt it, and to be sacrificed for it. He looked not 
into the future, but consulted only the openings of 
his present duty. He expected at first to keep within 
the restrictions of the national Church. The manner 
in which he was providentially led to adopt, one by 
one, the peculiar measures which at last consolidated 
into a distinct and unparalleled system, is an inter- 
esting feature in the history of Methodism, and 
worthy to be traced with more particular attention 
than we have hitherto been able to give it. 

The doctrines which he preached, and the novel 
emphasis with which he preached them, led to his 
expulsion from the pulpits of the Establishment. 
This treatment, together with the great assemblies 



ITS PRACTICAL SYSTEM. 



115 



he attracted, compelled him to preach them in the 
open air : a measure which the moral wants of the 
country demanded, and which is justified, as well 
by the example of Christ as by its unquestionable 
results. 

The inconvenience of the "room" occupied by 
his followers for spiritual meetings at Bristol, led 
to the erection of a more commodious edifice. This 
was a place of occasional preaching, and finally, 
without the slightest anticipation of such a result, 
the first in a sei^ies of chapels which became the 
habitual resorts of his followers, and thereby con- 
tributed more, perhaps, than any other cause to their 
organization into a distinct sect. The debt incurred 
by this building rendered necessary a plan of pecun- 
iary contrilutions among the worshipers who assem- 
bled in it. They agreed to pay a penny a week. 
They were divided into companies of twelve, one of 
whom, called the leader, was appointed to receive 
their pittances. At their weekly meetings, for the 
payment of this contribution, they found leisure for 
religious conversation and prayer. These companies, 
formed only for a local and temporary object, were 
afterward called classes^ and the arrangement was in- 
corporated into the permanent economy of Method- 
ism. In this manner originated one of the most dis- 
tinctive features of its system, the advantages of 
which are beyond estimation. The class-meeting has, 



116 CENTENAKY OF AMERICAN METHODISM. 



more than any other means, preserved the original 
purity and vigor of the denomination. It is the best 
school of experimental divinity that the world has 
seen in modern times. It has given a sociality of 
spirit and a disciplinary training to Methodism which 
have been characteristic of it, if not peculiar to it. 

We cannot but admire the providential adaptation 
of this institution to another which was subsequently 
to become all-important in the Methodist economy — 
an itinerant ministry. Such a ministry could not 
admit of much local pastoral labor, especially in 
the New World, where the circuits were long. The 
class-leader became a substitute for the preacher 
in this department of his office. The fruits of 
an itinerant ministry must have disappeared in 
many, perhaps most, places during the long inter- 
vals which elapsed between the visits of the earlier 
preachers, had they not been preserved by the class- 
meeting. 

Another most important result of the class-meeting 
was the pecuniary provision it afforded for the prose- 
cution of the plans which were daily enlarging under 
the hands of "Wesley. The whole fiscal system of 
Methodism arose from the Bristol penny collections, 
modified at last into the rule " of " a penny a week 
and a shilling a quarter." Thus, without foreseeing 
the great independent cause he was about to estab- 
lish, Wesley formed, through a slight circumstance, a 



ITS PRACTICAL SYSTEM. 



117 



simple and yet most effective system of finance for 
the expenses whicli its future prosecution would 
involve. And admirably was this pecuniary system 
adapted to the circumstances of that cause. He was 
destined to raise up a great religious organization ; 
it was to be composed chiefly of the poor, and yet to 
require large pecuniary resources. How were these 
resources to be provided from among a poor people ? 
The providential formation of apian of finance which 
suited the poverty of the poorest, and which worldly 
sagacity would have contemned, banished all diflB.- 
culty, and has led to pecuniary results which have 
rarely if ever been equaled by any voluntary religious 
organization. 

The itinerant lay ministry was equally providen- 
tial in its origin. Wesley was at first opposed to the 
employment of lay preachers. He expected the co- 
operation of the regular clergy. They, however, 
were his most persistent antagonists. Meanwhile 
the small societies, formed by his followers for 
spiritual improvement, multiplied. " What," he 
says, " was to be done in a case of such extreme 
necessity, where so many souls lay at stake ? No 
clergyman would assist at all. The expedient that 
remained was to seek some one among themselves 
who was upright of heart and of sound judgment in 
the things of God, and desire him to meet the rest as 
often as he could, to confirm them, as he was able, in 



118 CENTENARY OF AMERICAN METHODISM. 



the ways of God, either by reading to them or by 
prayer and exhortation." From exhortation these 
men proceeded to exposition, from exposition to 
preaching. The result was natural, but it was not 
designed. Such was the origin of the Methodist 
lay ministry. 

The multiplication of societies exceeded the increase 
of preachers. It thus became necessary that the lat 
ter should travel from town to town, and thence 
arose the itinerancy^ one of the most important feat- 
ures of the ministerial system of Methodism. It is 
not a labor-saving provision — quite the contrary — but 
a laborer-saving one. The pastoral service, which 
would otherwise have been confined to a single 
parish, was extended by this plan to scores of towns 
and villages, and, by the co-operation of the class- 
meeting, was rendered almost as efficient as it would 
have been were it local. It was this peculiarity that 
rendered the ministry of Methodism so successful in 
new countries. It also contributed, perhaps more 
than any other cause, to maintain a sentiment 
of unity among its people. It gave a pilgrim, a 
militant character to its preachers ; they felt that 
" here they had no abiding city," and were led more 
earnestly to seek one out of sight. It would not 
allow them to entangle themselves with local tram- 
mels. The cross peculiarly " crucified them to the 
world, and the world to them." Their zeal, rising 



ITS PRACTICAL syste:m:. 



119 



into religions chivalry ; their devotion to one work , 
their disregard for ease and the conveniences ot 
stationary life, were owing largely to their itiner- 
ancy. It made them one of the most self-sacrificing, 
laborious, practical, and successful bodies of men 
vrhich have appeared in the great field of modern 
Christian labor. And it was the opinion of Wesley 
that the -time when itinerancy should cease in the 
ministry, and classes among the laity of ]\Iethodism, 
would be the date of its downfall. 

These developments inevitably led to others. It 
was necessary that "Wesley should advise his preach- 
ers ; they met him annually for the purpose, and 
from such informal consultations arose the consti- 
tutional Conference^ a body whose title has taken 
a prominent place in the ecclesiastical terminology 
of Christendom, among the names of councils, con- 
vocations, and synods. Its deliberations at last 
originated the laws, defined the theology, and 
planned the propagandism of the denomination. Its 
Minutes, revised and reduced, became the MetJtodist 
Discipline, It has reproduced itself in Ireland, in 
France and Germany, in the American Eepublic, 
in the British Xorth American Provinces, in Aus- 
tralia, in India and in Africa ; and it promises to 
be a perpetually if not a universally recognized 
institution of the Protestant world. 

With the erection of churches arose the necessity 



120 CENTENARY OF AMERICAN METHODISM. 



for the appointment of Trustees to hold their prop- 
erty. The finances of the societies rendered neces- 
sary the appointment of local Stewards ; the multi- 
plication of societies, the appointment of Circuit 
Stewards^ to whom the local stewards became 
auxiliaries. The increase of business on the circuits 
led to the creation of the Quarterly Meeting^ or 
Quarterly Conference as it is called in America, 
comprising the ofiicers, lay and clerical, of the 
several societies of the circuit ; and the District 
Meeting or Conference, combining several circuits. 
And thus, wheel within wheel, the system took 
form, and became a settled and powerful economy. 

The importance of this system becomes still more 
striking when we consider its adaptation to the 
ISTew World — to the immense fields of immigration 
and civilization which were about to be opened in 
not only I^orth America, but in Oceanica, the 
"Island "World," to which geographers give rank 
as the fifth division of the globe, and along whose 
now busy coasts Cook, the navigator, was furtively 
sailing while Wesley was founding Methodism in 
England. Its importance to our own country will 
be considered hereafter. 

It has been objected to the ecclesiastical system of 
Methodism that it excludes its laity from its higher 
councils. Historically this fact is not discreditable to 
it. Its early preachers went forth not at the call of 



ITS PEACTICAL SYSTEM. 



121 



the people, but to call the people. A small body of 
ecclesiastics, they traversed the land preaching and 
forming Societies on circuits hundreds of miles long. 
These Societies were usually feeble, individually ; they 
were composed mostly of poor, dispersed, and unlet- 
tered people; and the preachers were compelled to 
have the almost exclusive management of their scat- 
tered, untrained Churches. It was necessary for 
the itinerants to meet periodically to revise and 
rearrange their labors ; these periodical assemblies 
were called, as we have seen, by the unpretentious 
name of Conferences ; it would have been impossible, 
in the early days of the denomination, to have gath- 
ered, in their sessions, any satisfactory lay representa- 
tion of the Societies. The conference grew into the 
supreme legislature and judiciary of the Church, and 
thus came to pass, at last, the startling anomaly of 
the largest religious body in the republic, a body, too, 
entirely pervaded by the republican sentiments of 
the country, yet controlled exclusively, in at least its 
higher assemblies, by its clergy. The fact was not 
the result of design, it was historically an accident, 
and I repeat, in nowise dishonorable to the ministry. 
In agitations for a reform of this fact, there has been 
no little contention and confusion, but opposition to 
a change has not arisen so much from theories of 
church government, as from a fear, on the part of 
loyal laymen and preachers, that the practical 



122 CENTENARY OF AMERICAN METHODISM. 



efficiency of tlie system would be endangered by any 
radical change. Theories of Churcli polity have 
been of course more or less unavoidable in such 
discussions, but practical expediency has been the 
main question with both parties. The liberality, 
not to say liberalism, of Methodism in theology 
(hereafter to be shown) has characterized it equally 
in matters of Cimrch government. It does not admit 
that there is any scriptural or divinely enjoined form 
of ecclesiastical polity, but that practical expedience 
is the only divine right of any system. Its own 
system is essentially Presbyterian, a Presbyterian 
episcopacy. Its bishop is a presbyter in " order," 
though a bishop in office ; a presbyter superintending 
the body of presbyters, primus inter pares. In 
retaining the two clerical orders of presbyter and 
deacon, it does not declare that they are necessary 
to the validity of the ministry, nor impeach sister 
Churches that have them not ; in adopting ordina- 
tion, by imposition of hands, it does not assert any 
sacramental virtue or scriptural obligation in the 
rite, but uses it as an impressive and appropriate 
ceremony. In America Methodism has always, since 
its organization, had bishops, in England it has never 
had them ; in America it has the two orders of the 
ministry, in England it has but one ; in the former 
it has always practiced " ordination " by imposition 
of hands, in England it never used such ordination 



ITS PRACTICAL SYSTEM. 



123 



until some years ago, when it was adopted at the 
suggestion of an American visitor, and solely as an 
expedient form ; and yet British, and American 
Methodism have never questioned each others' scrip- 
tural validity. 

Basing all Church government on Christian expedi- 
ency, American Methodism is ready for any modifi- 
cations of its system which time may show to be 
desirable for its greater effectiveness. Its General 
Conference has therefore formally declared that it is 
not only willing to provide for lay representation 
whenever the Churches demand it, but that it 
approves of the change. Many Annual Conferences 
have also formally seconded this declaration of the 
supreme body, and it is evident that the Church is 
now generally becoming convinced that in its present 
maturity it can safely modify its government in this 
respect, and thus rid itself of an ecclesiastical anom- 
aly which, if it has not seriously interfered with its 
prosperity, has at least been a disparagement to its 
character, especially in the writings of its opponents. 
Lay representation is a prospective, apparently a 
certain fact of American Methodism, and with it 
will come, it may be hoped, a reunion of most if not 
all its various sects in the nation, this being now the 
only important question between most of them and 
the parent body. 



ITS DOCTRUSTAL SYSTEM. 



125 



CHAPTEE VL 

ITS DOCTRINAL SYSTEM. 

It has been aflSrmed that, consistently with its 
Providential mission, as a revival of spiritual life in 
Christendom, Methodism did not start on its career 
with any new dogmas, or any sectarian or theological 
exclusiveness. It has its theology nevertheless, and 
this theology has doubtless been one of the most 
potent elements of its vitality as an ecclesiastical 
movement. 'Not a single doctrine, however, did it 
announce, or does it yet proclaim, that was not sanc- 
tioned by the standards of the Anglican establish- 
ment. It was not, as we have seen, novelty of opinion 
so much as the earnestness with which Methodism 
uttered the acknowledged doctrines of the Church, 
that gave offense and provoked opposition and pro- 
scription. Wesley provided the theology of Amer- 
ican Methodism in a symbol called the '^Articles of 
Religion," and these articles were taken from the 
" Thirty-nine Articles " of the Anglican Church. 
They are abridged, and in some cases slightly 
amended, but they convey no tenet which is not 
received by the Church of England, and they are 
the only officially recognized standard of Methodist 



126 CENTENARY OF AMERICAN METHODISM. 

doctrine in America. Wesley's emendations chiefly 
guard them against interpretations favorable to sacra- 
mental regeneration and other Komish errors. 

Singularly enough, the opinions which are con- 
sidered most distinctive of Wesleyan theology have 
no expression in the "Articles of Eeligion," which, 
by Wesley's own prescription, have become the 
dogmatic standard of American Methodism. He 
eliminates the supposed Anglican Calvinism, but 
he does not introduce his own Arminianism, ex- 
cept in the thirty-first Anglican article on the 
" Oblation of Christ," which is Arminian as to 
the extent of the atonement. In like manner 
we have no statement of his doctrines of the 
"Witness of the Spirit" and "Christian Perfec- 
tion." And yet no doctrines more thoroughly per- 
meate the preaching, or more entirely character- 
ize the moral life of Methodism than his opinions 
of the universal salvability of men, assurance, and 
sanctification. He evidently designed the articles 
to be the briefest and barest possible symbol of 
expedient doctrines ; and, as we shall hereafter see, 
not even a requisite condition of Church member- 
ship, though a requisite functional qualification for 
the ministry. He consigned his other tenets, how- 
ever precious to him, to other means of conservation 
and diffusion, for it was not his opinion that the 
orthodoxy of a Church can best guarantee its spirit- 



ITS DOCTRINAL SYSTEM. 



127 



ual life, but rather that its spiritual life can best 
guarantee its orthodoxy. 

The Arminianism of Wesley has been rightly 
so called. It is essentially true to the teachings 
of the great theologian of Holland, though not to 
the elaborations of his system by Episcopius and 
Limborch, and much less to the perversions of its 
later eminent representatives. Wesley had the cour- 
age to place the name of Arminius on his periodical 
organ, one of the earliest and now the oldest of 
religious magazines in the Protestant world. His 
Arminianism was far from being that mongrel 
system of semi-Pelagianism and semi-Socinianism 
which, for generations, was denounced by Is"ew 
England theologians as Arminianism, until the 
most erudite Calvinistic authority of the eastern 
states (Prof. Stuart of Andover) rebuked the base- 
less charge and bade his brethren be no longer 
guilty of it. Wesley taught original sin in the 
language of the ninth Anglican Article; though he 
taught also that both the justice and mercy of the 
Creator require that the human race should not have 
been continued, under this law of hereditary depra- 
vation, unless adequate provision were made for it 
by the atonement ; he preached, therefore, universal 
redemption. He taught with the tenth Anglican 
article, on Free Will," that " the condition of man, 
after the fall of Adam, is such that he cannot turn 



128 CENTENARY OF AMERICAN METHODISM. 

and prepare himself, by his natural strength and 
works, to faith and calling upon God ; " that he has 
" no power to do good works, pleasant and accept- 
able to God, without the grace of God, by Christ, 
preventing" him; but he taught also that such " pre- 
venting grace " is provided for all responsible souls, 
and that none could be responsible without it. 
"With the eleventh Anglican article he taught "just- 
ification by faith" alone, "and not for our own 
works and deservings;" yet he also taught that 
" good works follow after justification," and " do 
spring out, necessarily, of a true and lively faith." 
He taught the absolute sovereignty of God: that, 
like the potter with the clay, he can make some 
vessels for more, some for less honor ; yet he also 
taught that, as wisdom and beneficence are essential 
attributes of the divine sovereignty, God neither 
would nor could (any more than the wise potter 
with his clay) make some for the gratification of a 
wanton caprice in their destruction, much less in 
their interminable anguish. 

Of Wesley's Doctrine of Assurance, founded upon 
the text, " The Spirit itself beareth witness with our 
spirits that we are the children of God," and upon 
analogous Scripture passages, I have already said 
that it was not a peculiar opinion of Methodism, 
but common, in its essential form, to the leading 
Bodies of Christendom, Greek, Koman, and Protest- 



ITS DOCTRINAL SYSTEM. 



129 



ant ; that as a liigli theological as well as philosoph- 
ical authority of our timeSj Sir William Hamilton, has 
declared, " Assurance was long universally held in 
the Protestant communities to be the criterion and 
condition of a true or saving faith ; Luther declares, 
' He who hath not assurance spews faith out ; ' and 
Melanchthon, that ^assurance is the discriminating 
line of Christianity from heathenism ; ' that assurance 
is indeed the jpundum saliens of Luther's system, 
and unacquaintance with this, his great central doc- 
trine, is one prime cause of the chronic misrepre- 
sentation which runs through our recent histories of 
Luther and the Reformation ; that assurance is no 
less strenuously maintained by Calvin, is held even 
by Arminius, and stands essentially part and parcel 
of all the confessions of all Churches of the Reforma- 
tion down to the Westminster Assembly." Wesley 
defines the doctrine clearly. "By the testimony of 
the Spirit," he says, "I mean an inward impression on 
the soul, whereby the Spirit of God immediately and 
directly witnesses to my spirit that I am a child of 
God ; that Jesus Christ hath loved me, and given him- 
self for me ; that all my sins are blotted out, and I, 
even I, am reconciled to God. I do not mean hereby 
that the Spirit of God testifies this by any outward 
voice ; no, nor always by an inward voice, although 
he may do this sometimes. ISTeither do I suppose 

that he always applies to the heart (though he often 

9 



130 CENTENARY OF AMEEICAN METHODISM. 



may) one or more texts of Scripture ; but he so 
works upon the soul by his immediate influence, and 
by a strong, though inexplicable operation, that the 
stormy wind and troubled waves subside, and there 
is a sweet calm, the heart resting in Jesus, and the 
sinner being clearly satisfied that all his iniquities 
are forgiven and his sins covered." He disclaims 
any originality in his teachings on the subject, and 
says, " With regard to the assurance of faith, I appre- 
hend that the whole Christian Church in the first 
centuries enjoyed it. For though we have few 
points of doctrine explicitly taught in the small 
remains of the ante-Nicene fathers, yet, I think, 
none that carefully read Clemens Eomanus, Igna- 
tius, Poly carp, Origen, or any other of them, can 
doubt whether either the writer himself possessed it, 
or all whom he mentions, as real Christians. And I 
really conceive, both from the Uarmonia Oonfes- 
sionu7n^ and whatever else I have occasionally read, 
that all reformed Churches in Europe did once be- 
lieve, ' Every true Christian has the divine evidence 
of his being in favor with God.'" " I know likewise 
that Luther, Melanchthon, and many other (if not all) 
of the reformers, frequently and strongly assert that 
every believer is conscious of his own acceptance 
with God, and that by a supernatural evidence." 

For his doctrine of Sanctification, Wesley adopted 
the title of " Perfection," because he found it so used 



ITS DOCTRmAL SYSTEM. 



131 



in the Holy Scriptures. Paul and John he deemed 
suflScient authorities for the use of an epithet which 
he knew, however, would be liable to the cavils of 
criticism. The Christian world had also largely 
recognized the term in the writings of Clemens 
Alexandrinus, Macarius, Kempis, Fenelon, Lucas, 
and other writers, Papal and Protestant. Besides 
incessant allusions to the doctrine in his general 
wi'i tings, "Wesley has left an elaborate treatise on it. 
Fletcher of Madeley, an example as well as an 
authority of the doctrine, published an essay on it, 
proving it to be scriptural as well as sanctioned by 
the best theological writers. Wesley's theory of the 
doctrine is precise and intelligible, though often dis- 
torted into perplexing difficulties by both its advo- 
cates and opponents. Ha taught not absolute, nor 
angelic, nor Adamic, but " Christian perfection." 
Each sphere of being has its own normal limits; 
God alone has absolute perfection ; the angels have 
a perfection of their own above that of humanity, at 
least of the humanity of our own sphere ; unfallen *" 
man, represented by Adam, occupied a peculiar 
sphere in the divine economy, with its own rela- 
tions to the divine government, its own " perfec- 
tion," called by Wesley Adamic Perfection ; fallen, 
but regenerated man, has also his peculiar sphere 
as a subject of the Mediatorial Economy, and 
the highest practicable virtue (whatever it may 



132 CENTENARY OF AMERICAN METHODISM. 

be) in that sphere is its "perfection," is Christian 
perfection. 

Admitting such a theory of perfection, the most 
important question has respect to its practical limit. 
"When can it be said of a Christian man that he is 
thus perfect? "Wesley taught that perfect Christians 
" are not free from ignorance, no, nor from mistake. 
We are no more to expect any man to be infallible 
than to be omniscient. . . . From infirmities none 
are perfectly freed till their spirits return to God ; 
neither can we expect, till then, to be wholly freed 
from temptation ; for ' the servant is not above his 
Master.' IS'either in this sense is there any abso- 
lute perfection on earth. There is no perfection of 
degrees, none which does not admit of a continual in- 
crease. . . . The proposition which I will hold is this : 
^ Any person maybe cleansed from all sinful tempers, 
and yet need the atoning blood.' For what ? for 
^negligences and ignorances;' for both words and 
actions, (as well as omissions,) which are, in a sense, 
, transgressions of the perfect law. And I believe no 
one is clear of these till he lays down this corrupt- 
ible body." Perfection, as defined by Wesley, is 
not then perfection, according to the absolute moral 
law ; it is perfection according to the special reme- 
dial economy introduced by the Atonement, in 
which the heart, being sanctified, fulfills the law by 
love, (Rom. xii, 8, 10,) and its involuntary imperfec- 



ITS DOCTEIls'AL SYSTEM. 



133 



tions are provided for, by that economy, without the 
imputation of guilt, as in the case of infancy and all 
irresponsible persons. The only question, then, can 
be, Is it possible for good men to so love God that 
all their conduct, inward and outward, shall be 
swayed by love ? that even their involuntary defects 
shall be swayed by it ? Is there such a thing as the 
inspired writer calls the "perfect love" which " cast- 
eth out fear ? " (1 John iv, 1 8.) Wesley believed that 
there is ; that it is the privilege of all saints ; and 
that it is to be attained by faith. " I want you to 
be all love,^^ he wrote. " This is the perfection I 
believe and teach ; and this perfection is consistent 
with a thousand nervous disorders, which that high- 
strained perfection is not. Indeed, my judgment is, 
that (in this case particularly) to overdo is to undo ; 
and that to set perfection too high is the most 
effectual way of driving it out of the world." 
"Man," he says, "in his present state, can no more 
attain Adamic than angelic perfection. The per- 
fection of which man is capable, while he dwells in 
a corruptible body, is the complying with that kind 
command, ' My son, give me thy heart ! ' It is the 
loving the Lord his God w4th all his heart, and 
with all his soul, and with all his mind." Such 
is his much misrepresented doctrine of Christian 
perfection. Wesley taught that this sanctifica- 
tion is usually gradual, but may be instantaneous ; 



134 CEOTEjSTARY of AMEEICAIS" METHODISM. 



as, like justification, it is to be received by 
faith. 

Sncb are the theological characteristics of Meth- 
odism. It demands the assent of all its adult 
candidates for baptism to the Apostles' creed, and 
has in its Articles a general, though a very brief, 
platform, consisting of the leading dogmas of 
the universal Church ; aside from these, it preaches, 
especially. Universal Eedemption, Assurance, and 
Perfection. The latter are special to it, not so 
much as opinions, (for they are still, more or less, 
common to the Christian world,) but by the spe- 
cial emphasis with which Methodism utters them. 
They are the staple ideas of its preaching, of its 
literatm-e, of its colloquial inquiries in its class- 
meetings, prayer-meetings, and in the Christian 
intercourse of its social life. Though the success of 
the denomination cannot be explained apart from its 
disciplinary system and its spiritual energy, yet 
unquestionably its spiritual life and its practical 
system could not long subsist without its special 
theology. 

I have remarked on the striking fact that "Wesley 
did not insert in the theological Articles of American 
Methodism the tenets which are deemed most dis- 
tinctively Wesleyan, and which unquestionably have 
been a chief source of vitality to the denomination ; 
but a still more singular fact remains to be noticed, 



ITS DOCTRLN-AL SYSTEM. 



135 



namely : that he makes no theological opinions 
requisite for membership in the Church, and recog- 
nises no creed but the universal symbol of the early 
Church, the Apostles' creed, and this only in the 
administration of baptism. Of few things connected 
with Methodism does Wesley speak oftener or with 
more devout gratulation than of its catholicity. 
"One circumstance," he says, "is quite peculiar to 
the people called Methodists; that is, the terms 
upon which any persons may be admitted into their 
Society. They do not impose, in order to their 
admission, any opinions whatever. Let them hold 
particular or general redemption, absolute or con- 
ditional decrees. . . . They think, and let think. 
One condition, and one only, is required, a real 
desire to save their souls. Where this is, it is 
enough ; they desire no more ; they lay stress upon 
nothing else; they ask only, ^Is thy heart herein 
as my heart? If it be, give me thy hand.' " "Is 
there," he adds, " any other Society in Great Britain 
or Ireland that is so remote from bigotry ? that is so 
truly of a catholic spirit ? so ready to admit all 
serious persons without distinction ? Where is there 
such another society in Europe? in the habitable 
world? I know none. Let any man show it me 
that can. Till then let no one talk of the bigotry of 
the Methodists." When he was in his eighty-fifth 
year, preaching in Glasgow, he wrote : " I subjoined 



136 CENTENARY OF AMERICAN METHODISM. 



a short account of Methodism, particularly insisting 
on the circumstance, there is no other religious 
society under heaven which requires nothing of men, 
in order to their admission into it, but a desire to 
save their souls. Look all round you ; you cannot 
be admitted into the Church, or Society of the Pres- 
byterians, Anabaptists, Quakers, or any others, unless 
you hold the same opinions with them, and adhere 
to the same mode of worship. The Methodists alone 
do not insist on your holding this or that opinion. 
. . . IsTow, I do not know any other religious soci- 
ety, either ancient or modern, wherein such liberty 
of conscience is now allowed, or has been allowed 
since the age of the Apostles. Here is our glorying, 
and a glorying peculiar to us. "What society shares 
it with us ? " The possible results of such liberality 
were once discussed in the Conference. Wesley 
conclusively determined the debate by remarking : 
" I have no more right to object to a man for hold 
ing a different opinion from me, than I have to differ 
with a man because he wears a wig and I wear my 
own hair ; but if he takes his wig off, and begins to 
shake the powder about my eyes, I shall consider it 
my duty to get quit of him as soon as possible." " Is 
a man," he writes, "a believer in Jesus Christ? and is 
his life suitable to his profession ? are not only the 
main, but the sole inquiries I make in order to his 
admission into our Society." Did he design the 



ITS DpCTEIXAL SYSTEM. 



137 



new American Clmrcli to be equally liberal ? As 
the General Eules/' used in England, were retained, 
after the Christmas Conference, in America, as tlie 
" only one condition " of membersbip, and the " Arti- 
cles of Religion" are not mentioned in tliese Eules, 
but placed apart in the Discipline, are not the Arti- 
cles to be considered rather as an indicatory than an 
obligatory dogmatic symbol ; an indication to sincere 
men, seeking an asylum for Christian communion, 
of what kind of teaching they must expect in the 
new Church, but not of what they would be required 
to avow by subscription ? 

The Articles and the General Rules are both parts 
of the organic or constitutional law of American 
Methodism., though the General Eules prescribe the 
^'only condition" of membership, without an allusion 
to the Articles. Conformity to the doctrines of the 
Church is requii'ed by its statute law as a func- 
tional qualification for the ministry ; but Church 
members cannot be excluded for personal opinions 
while their lives conform to the practical discipline 
of the Church ; they can be tried and expelled for 
"sowing dissensions in the Societies by inveighing 
against their doctrines or discipline;" that is, in 
other words, not for their opinions, but for their 
moral conduct respecting their opinions. They can- 
not be expelled for anything short of defects which 
"are suflBcient to exclude a person from the king- 



138 CENTENAEY OF AMEEICAN METHODISM. 



dom of grace and glory." And at what would "Wes- 
ley himself have more revolted than the assumption 
that opinions, not affecting the Christian conduct of 
a member of his Society, were " sufficient to exclude 
him from the kingdom of grace and glory ? ""^ This 
interesting historical fact is full of significance, as 
an example of that distinction between indicatory 
and obligatory standards of theological belief which 
Methodism has, perhaps, had the honor of first 

* Such, it will scarcely be questioned, is the right of communion 
possessed by a person already in the Methodist Episcopal Church; 
but it has sometimes been a question whether doctrinal opinions are 
not required for admission by the administrative prescription adopted 
since Wesley's day, (Disciphne, Part I, chap. 2, § 2): "Let none be 
received until they shall, on examination by the minister in charge 
before the Church, give satisfactory assurances both of the correct- 
nesa of their faith and their willingness to keep the rules." It may be 
replied, 1. That, according to Wesley's definition of the faith, essential 
to a true Church, there could be no difficulty here. 2. That, as the 
requisition is merely an administrative one for the preachers, and 
prescribes not what are to be "satisfactory assurances," etc., the lat- 
ter are evidently left to the discretion of the pastor, and the require- 
ment is designed to afford him the opportunity of further instructing 
the candidate, or of receiving from him pledges that his opinions shall 
not become a practical abuse in the society. 3. If the rule amounts 
to more than this, it would probably be pronounced, by good judges 
of Methodist law, incompatible with the usages and general system of 
Methodism, an oversight of the General Conference which enacted .it, 
and contrary to the General Rules, as guarded by the Restrictive 
Rules. 4. It would be a singular and inconsistent fact, that opinions 
should be made a condition of admission to the Church, but not of 
responsibiUty (except in their practical abuse) with persons already 
in the Church. (See History of the Religious Movement, etc., vol. ii, 
p. 448.) 



ITS DOCTRI^^AL SYSTEM. 



139 



exemplifying among the leading Cliurclies of the 
modern Christian world. 

* See Articles of Religion, Appendix II. Wesley's liberality would 
startle many Methodists of our day. I add a few examples : "This 
in Scripture, perhaps not once in the sense we noiv use ity Notes 
term, (converted.) so common in modern writings, very rarely occurs 
on the New Testament, Acts iii, 19. "True repenta/ace is a change 
from spiritual death to spiritual life^ and leads to life everlasting." 
Acts xi, 18. "He that, first, reverences God, etc.; secondly, from 
this awful regard to him, not only avoids all known evil, but endeavors, 
according to the best light he has, to do all things well, is accepted of 
Him — through Christ, though he knows him not. The assertion is 
express, and admits of no exception. He is in the favor of God, whether 
enjoying his written word and ordinances or not^ Acts x, 35. "A 
mystic, who denies justification by faith (Mr. Law for instance) may 
be saved. But if so, what becomes of Articulus stantus vel cadentis 
Ecclesice f If so, is it not high time ? 

Projicere ampullas et sesquipedalia verta, 

and to return to the plain word ; ' He that feareth God and worketh 
righteousness is accepted with him?'" Journal, December 1st, ITGY. 
" I have not for many years thought a consciousness of acceptance 
to be essential to justifying faith." A.D. IT 68, voL vii, p. 495. He 
published for the edification of his people the Life of one of the most 
active Unitarians of his day, and in the Preface remarks : "I 
was exceedingly struck at reading the following Life: having long 
settled it in my mind that the entertaining wrong notions con- 
cerning the Trinity was inconsistent with real piety. Bui I cannot 
argue against matter of fact. I dare not deny that Mr. Firmin was a 
pious man, although his notions of the Trinitj^were quite erroneous." 
Yol. vii, p. 574. "Who are we that we should withstand God? Par- 
ticularly by laying down rules of Christian communion which exclude 
any whom he has admitted into the Church of the first-born from 
worshiping God together. 0 that all Church governors would con- 
sider how bold an usurpation this is on the authority of the supreme 
I Lord of the Church ! 0 that the sin of thus withstandmg God may 
not be laid to the charge of those, who perhaps with a good intention^ 



140 CENTENARY OF AMERICAN METHODISM. 



Methodism lias naturally, in the first century of 
its history, not developed largely in the way of 
systematic divinity. But it has a thorough and able 
doctrinal exposition in the " Theological Institutes " 
of Richard Watson, of whom Prof. J. "W. Alexander, 
of Princeton College, says : " Turretine is, in theol- 
ogy, instar omnium : that is, so far forth as Black- 
stone is in law. Making due allowance for the dif- 
erence of age, Watson, the Methodist, is the only 
systematizer, within my knowledge, who approaches 
the same eminence ; of whom I use Addison's words : 
' He reasons like Paley, and descants like Hall.' " 
Another systematic work is now in progress in 
the German language, from the pen of Prof. War- 
ren ; ^ one of the most important contributions from 
an American hand to modern theological literature. 
This author has endeavored to determine the true 
relative position of Methodist theology, and says : 

There are four great complete Christo-theologi- 
cal systems, the contrarieties of which are so fun- 
damental and exhaustive that every writer on sys- 

hut in an over fondness for their own forms^ have done it, and are con- 
tinually doing it!" Notes, Acts xi, V\. In fine he expresses his 
whole policy, as an ecclesiastical leader, in a letter to a friend: "The 
first of your particular advice is * to keep in view the interests of 
Christ's Church in general, and of practical religion ; not considering 
the Church of England, or cause of Methodism, but as subordinate 
thereto.' This advice I have punctually observed." 

* Systematische Theologie, einheithch behandelt. Yon William F. 
Warren. Bremen, 1865 



ITS DOCTEDsAL SYSTEM. 



141 



tematic theology who is not willing to give up tlie 
essence of Christianity itself must, in respect to 
them, choose and maintain a definite stand-point. 
The four mentioned great systems of doctrine are 
the Eoman Catholic, the Calvinistic, the Lutheran, 
and the Wesleyan. These systems rest on difierent 
conceptions of the soteriological relation of God and 
man as established by Christ, and correspond to 
different stages of development of the religious 
consciousness. Besides these four great systems 
there is no other worthy of notice. The Greek 
Church has as yet formed no definite regular sys- 
tem of doctrine, and, so long as she retains her 
present views, can form none which can radically 
differ from Eomanism. The Church of England 
has, much less, a peculiar complete system. Her 
theology is a mass of the most discordant elements. 
Her books of doctrine are appealed to by Calvinists 
and Arminians, Puritans and Puseyites, Evangelicals 
and Sacramentarians, High and Low Churchmen, 
and with about equal propriety. If she is less one- 
sided than the Reformed and Lutheran Churches, 
nevertheless her teaching embraces almost all the 
incompleteness and errors of them both.'' 

According to the Roman Catholic view of Chris 
tianity, salvation is imparted through the (Papal) 
Church alone, and is conditioned on a meritorious 
co-working of the subject with grace. With this 



142 CENTEJSTARy OF AMERICAK METHODISM. 

ground- view all the other peculiarities of the system, 
as, for example, the doctrine of the infallibility of 
the Church, priestly power, the merit of works, the 
sacrifice of the mass, purgatory, picture-worship, in- 
dulgences, angel and saint-reyerencing, etc., are 
closely connected. According to its inmost spirit 
and essence, Catholicism is nothing other than an 
essentially pagan view of Christian truth. 

"According to the Calvinistic view of Chris 
tianity, the salvation or non-salvation of each human 
being depends absolutely on the free action of God 
toward him. God, according to this system, has 
elected to certain salvation a certain unalterable 
number of mankind, accurately fixed before the 
foundation of the world, and has either predes- 
tinated all others to certain damnation, or within him- 
self resolved to permit them, unredeemed, to perish 
in their inherited depravity. This eternal twofold 
decree he executes unfailingly in time through his 
gracious sovereignty. With this ground-view of 
Calvinism, all its other peculiarities, for example, 
its limited (partial) atonement, its total denial of 
human freedom, its dogma of the irresistibility of 
grace and of the impossibility of apostasy, are inti- 
mately connected. According to its inmost spirit 
and essence, this system is a conception of Chris- 
tianity from the stand-point of an Old Testament 
faith. 



ITS DOCTKINAL SYSTEM. 



143 



" According to the Lutheran view of the soterio- 
logical relation of God and man, the salvation or 
non-salvation of each human being is solely depend- 
ent on his own personal action in regard to the 
means of grace, (the word and the sacraments,) If 
any one uses these properly, and everybody .is 
capable of doing this through his own natural 
powers, then God will give to him, through these 
means of grace, faith, and with faith justification. If 
he continues diligently in the proper use of the word 
and of the sacraments, he will retain the received 
blessings and finally overcome death and hell. 
With this ground-view of Lutheranism, all the 
other peculiarities of the system, such as the bodily 
presence of Christ in the eucharist, the relative over- 
estimation of the sacraments, over-attachment to 
the Church, etc., are closely allied. In respect to 
its inmost spirit and essence this creed is a view 
of Christianity from the stand-point of justification. 

"According to the Methodistic view of the sote- 
riological relation of God and man, the salvation 
or non-salvation of each human being depends 
on his own free action in respect to the enlighten- 
ing, renewing, and sanctifying inworkings of the 
Holy Spirit. If, in respect to these inworkings, he 
holds himself receptively, then will he become 
holy both here and hereafter; but if he closes his 
heart against the same, he will continue in death 



144: CEKTEISrARY OF AMERICAN METHODISM. 

both here and in eternity. With this ground-view, 
all the other peculiarities of Methodism, such as 
its peculiar dogma of freedom, its emphasis of the 
working of the Holy Spirit, its doctrines of Christian 
perfection, etc., are intimately connected. In respect 
to its inmost spirit and essence it is a viewing of 
Christianity from the stand-point of Christian per- 
fection or perfect love. 

" Such is the stand-point, such the doctrinal and 
historical significance, of the Methodistic system. It 
presents Christian theology ' high as the love of 
God, deep as the want of man.' It is the ripe 
final result of the millennial-long spiritual study 
and searching of the Church of Christ into the 
truths of the divine revelation. And as soon as 
this view of the soteriological relation of God and 
man shall find universal prevalence and acceptance, 
BO soon will the salvation or non-salvation of the 
soul cease to be made dependent either on hu- 
man conduct in regard to a particular priest- 
hood or an eternal decree of God, or on the mys- 
terious working of Church ceremonies, but will be 
regarded as depending on man's own action in re- 
gard to the enlightening, renewing, and sanctifying 
influences of the Holy Spirit. Let us venture to 
hope for an early dawn of that day, so much anti- 
cipated and so anxiously wished for by so many 
and such earnest spirits of our time, in which a 



ITS DOCTEINAL SYSTEM. 



145 



new and rich outgushing of the Holy Ghost will 
put an end to the intolerable disagreements of the 
old Churches and creeds, and reveal the kingdom 
of God in power and great majesty." 

Such, then, is Methodism, as seen in its History, its 
Practical Economy, and its Theological Platform — 
a system of spiritual life, of Evangelical liberalism, 
of apostolic propagandism. As such it has pre-emi- 
nent claims on the consideration and gratitude of 
om* age ; but these claims it has further demon- 
strated by its beneficent, its extraordinary results, 
especially in this new world. We are now prepared 

to consider some of these results. 

10 



PART 11. 



WHAT HAS METHODISM ACHIEVED, ENTITLING IT 
TO THE PEOPOSED COMMEMORATION? 



CHAPTEE I. 

ITS SPECIAL ADAPTATION TO THE COUNTRY. 

Methodism, it lias been affirmed, was a specia 
provision for the early religious wants of this nation. 
The Eevolntion opened the continent for rapid settle- 
ment by immigration. A movement of the peoples 
of the old world toward the new was to set in on a 
scale surpassing that of the northern hordes which 
overwhelmed the Eoman Empire. Much of ^ this 
incoming population was to be Roman Catholic, 
most of it low, if not semi-barbarous. Some extra- 
ordinary religious provision was requisite to meet 
and counteract its demoralizing influence on the 
country. 

The growth of population was to transcend the 
most credulous anticipations. The one million and 
a quarter (including blacks) of 1750, the less than 
three millions of 1780, were to be nearly four mill- 



14:8 CENTENAEY OF AMEEICAN METHODISM. 

ions in 1790 ; nearly five anji a third millions in 
1800; more than nine and a half millions in 1820 ; 
nearly thirteen millions in 1830. Thus far they were 
to increase nearly thirty-three and a half per cent, in 
each, decade. Pensioners of the war of the Eevolu- 
tion were to live to see the " Far "West " trans- 
ferred from the valleys of Virginia, the eastern base 
of the Pennsylvania Alleghanies, and the center 
of New Torkj to the great deserts beyond the 
Mississippi ; to see mighty states, enriching the 
world, flourish on the Pacific coast ; and to read, 
in New York, news sent the same day from San 
Francisco. Men, a few at least, who lived when 
the population of the country was less than three 
millions, were to live when it should be thirty 
millions. 

Methodism, with its "lay ministry" and its 
"itinerancy," could alone afford the ministrations 
of religion to this overflowing population ; it was to 
lay the moral foundations of many of the great 
states of the West. The older Churches of the 
colonies could never have supplied them with " reg- 
ular" or educated pastors in any proportion to 
their rapid settlement. Methodism met this neces- 
sity in a manner that should command the national 
gratitude. It was to become at last the dominant 
popular faith of the country, with its standard 
planted in every city, town, and almost every vil- 



ITS SPECIAL ADAPTATION TO THE COUNTRY. 149 

lage of the land. Moving in the van of emigra- 
tion, it was to supply, with the means of relig- 
ion, the frontiers from the Canadas to the Gulf 
of Mexico, from Puget's Sound to the Gulf of Cal- 
ifornia. It was to do this indispensable work by 
means peculiar to itself ; by districting the land 
into circuits which, from one hundred to five hund- 
red miles in extent, could each be statedly sup- 
plied with religious instruction by one or two 
traveling evangelists who, preaching daily, could 
thus have charge of parishes comprising hundreds 
of miles and tens of thousands of souls. It was 
to raise up, without delay for preparatory training, 
and thrust out upon these circuits, thousands of such 
itinerants, tens of thousands of local or lay preach- 
ers and exhorters, as auxiliary and unpaid laborers, 
with many thousands of class-leaders who could 
maintain pastoral supervision over the infant socie- 
ties in the absence of the itinerant preachers, the 
latter not having time to delay in any locality for 
much more than the public services of the pulpit. 
Over all these circuits it was to maintain the 
watchful jurisdiction of traveling presiding elders, 
and over the whole system the superintendence of 
traveling bishops, to whom the entire nation was 
to be a common diocese. It was to govern the 
whole field by Quarterly Conferences for each cir- 
cuit, Annual Conferences for groups of circuits, 



150 CEKTENARY OF AMERICAK METHODISM. 

Quadrennial Conferences for all the Annual Confer- 
ences. It was to preach night and day in churches, 
where it could command them, in private houses, 
school-houses, court-houses, barns, in the fields, on 
the highways. It was to stud the continent with 
chapels, building them, in our times at least, at the 
rate of nearly two a day. It was to provide acade- 
mies and colleges exceeding in number, if not in 
efficiency, those of any other religious body of the 
country, however older or richer. It was to scatter 
over the land cheap publications, all its itinerants 
being authorized agents for their sale, until its 
" Book Concern " should become the largest relig- 
ious publishing house in the world. The best au- 
thority for the moral statistics of the country, him- 
self of another denomination, (Dr. Baird,) was at 
last to "recognize in the Methodist economy, as 
.well as in the zeal, the devoted piety and the effi- 
ciency of its ministry, one of the most powerful 
elements in the religious prosperity of the United 
States, as well as one of the firmest pillars of their 
civil and political institutions." The historian of 
the Republic (Bancroft) records that it has "wel- 
comed the members of Wesley's Society as the 
pioneers of religion; that the breath of liberty 
has wafted their messages to the masses of the 
people; encouraged them to collect the white and 
negro, slave and master, in the green wood, for 



ITS SPECIAL ADAPTATION TO THE COUNTKY. 151 



counsel on divine love and the full assurance of 
grace; and carried their consolation and songs and 
prayers to the furthest cabins in the wilderness." 

It would indeed appear that the Methodist move- 
ment was thus a providential intervention for the 
new nation. As we have seen, it began its opera- 
tions here at the dawn of the Eevolutionary con- 
troversy ; its infancy was cotemporaneous with the 
infancy of the Republic ; it was the only form of 
religion that possessed much vitality or made any 
progress during the Revolutionary struggle; its 
denominational organization at the Christmas Con- 
ference anticipated the national organization under 
the Federal Constitution ; it fairly started with the 
Republic, and has kept pace with it, establishing 
the ordinances of religion coextensively with the 
spread of the population and the laws of the Govern- 
ment. It not only, by its peculiar system, met the 
emergent moral necessities of the opening continent, 
but exerted also a most important influence on the 
other and older religious provisions of the land. 
"Whitefield's repeated passages through the colonies 
had aroused the Churches for the coming wants of the 
country. The " Great Awakening " under Edwards, 
in New England, had subsided, and even reacted ; 
Whitefield restored the evangelical vitality of New 
England, and it has never since been lost. The Pres- 
byterian and Baptist Churches of the middle states 



162 CENTENAEY OF AMERICAN METHODISM. 

were quickened into their subsequent and abiding 
energy by bis flaming ministrations. The earliest 
religions impulses of the South were given by him. 
Methodism, organized, took up the work when ho 
fell in the field, and it has never ceased to advance, 
in all evangelical denominations, beyond any for- 
eign example. Methodism was not designed to sup- 
plant its elder sister Churches in the land, but to 
provoke them to new life and labors, while it 
accomplished its own given work. It nevertheless 
quickly surpassed them. We have authentic sta- 
tistics of the leading Christian denominations 
of the United States for the first half of our cen- 
tury. They attest conclusively the peculiar adapt- 
ation of the ecclesiastical system of Methodism 
to the moral wants of the country. During the 
period from 1800 to 1850 the ratio of the increase 
of the ministry of the Protestant Episcopal Church 
has been as 6 to 1, of its communicants as 6 to 1 ; 
of the ministry of the Congregationalists as 4 to 1, 
of their communicants as 2| to 1 ; of the ministry 
of the regular Baptists as 4 to 1, of their communi- 
cants as 5f to 1 ; of the ministry of the Presbyterians 
(" old and new schools ") as 14 to 1, of their commu- 
nicants as 8J to 1 ; of the ministry of the Methodist 
Episcopal Church (North and South) as 19f to 1, 
of its communicants as 171 to 1. It must be borne 
in mind, however, that most if not all these relig- 



ITS SPECIAL ADAPTATION TO THE COUNTRY. 153 

ions bodies have, during the whole of this period, • 
been more or less pervaded by the Methodistic im- 
pulse given by TThitefield and his successors, and 
much of their success is unquestionably attributable 
to that fact. Methodism has given them thousands 
of its converts and received but comparatively few 
from them. 



DIFFUSION OF LITERATURE. 



155 



CHAPTER II. 

ITS LABORS FOR THE DIFFUSION OF LITERATURE. 

Methodism has always appreciated the importance 
of literature. If individual prejudices have seemed 
to indicate the contrary, they have been but excep- 
tional to the general sentiment of the denomination. 
It began its march from the gates of a university. 
Wesley labored incessantly, by his pen, for the eleva- 
tion of the popular mind. A German historian of 
Methodism classifies, with German elaborateness, 
the great variety of his literary works, as Poetical, 
Philological, Philosophical, Historical, and Theo- 
logical. Though he wrote before Wesley's death, he 
states that many of these writings, after ten or twenty 
editions, could be obtained only with difficulty, and 
the whole could not be purchased for less than ten 
guineas, notwithstanding they were published at 
rates surprisingly cheap ; for Wesley was the first 
to set the example of modern cheap prices sustained 
by large sales. A catalogue of his publications, 
printed about 1756, contains no less than one hund- 
red and eighty-one articles in prose and verse, 
English and Latin, on grammar, logic, medicine, 
music, poetry, theology, and philosophy. Two 



156 CENTENAEY OF AMERICAN METHODISM. 

thirds of these publications were for sale at less than 
one shilling each, and more than one fourth at 
a penny. They were thus brought within reach 
of the poorest of his people. "Simplify religion 
and every part of learning," he wrote to Benson, 
who was the earliest of his lay preachers addicted 
to literary labors. To all his preachers he said, 
"See that every society is supplied with books, 
some of which ought to be in every house." 

It has justly been said that Wesley reduced many 
folios and quartos to pocket volumes; he waded 
through the mass of the learned works of his day, 
and, simplifying, multiplying, cheapening them, pre- 
sented in the cottages and hovels of the poor almost 
every variety of useful or entertaining knowledge. 
In addition to his own prose productions, constitut- 
ing fourteen octavo volumes in the English edition 
and seven in the American, his "1^'otes" and abridg- 
ments make a catalogue of one hundred and eighteen 
prose works, (a single one of which. The Christian 
Library, contains fifty volumes,) forty-nine poetical 
publications by himself and his brother, and five 
distinct works on music. ISTot content with books 
and tracts, Wesley projected, in August, 1777, the 
Arminian Magazine, and issued the first number at 
the beginning of 1778. It was one of the first four 
religious magazines which sprung from the resusci- 
tated religion of the age, and which began this 



DIFFUSION OF LITERATFEE. 



157 



species of periodical publications in tlie Protestant 
world. Though, nominally devoted to the defense 
of the Arminian theology, it was miscellaneous in 
its contents, and served not only for the promotion 
of religious literature, but of general intelligence. 
He conducted it till his death, and made faithful 
use of it for the diffusion of knowledge among the 
people. It is now the oldest religious periodical in 
the world. It may be questioned whether any En- 
glish writer of the last or the present century has 
equaled Wesley in the number of his productions. 

American Methodism has always been true to this 
example of English Methodism, and in fact has far 
transcended it. Its "Book Concern" is now the 
largest religious publishing house in the world. As 
early as 1789, John Dickins, then the only Methodist 
preacher in Philadelphia, was appointed " Book Stew- 
ard " of the denomination. The first volume issued by 
him was the " Christian Pattern," (W esley's transla- 
tion of Kempis's celebrated " Imitation ;") the " Meth- 
odist Discipline," the Hymn Book," " Wesley's Prim- 
itive Physic;" and reprints of the first volume of 
the "Arminian Magazine," and Baxter's "Saint's 
Eest," followed. The only capital of the Concern 
was about six hundred dollars, lent to it by Dickins 
himself. In 1790 portions of Fletcher's "Checks" 
were reprinted. In 1797 a "Book Committee" was 
appointed, to whom all books were to be submitted 



158 CENTENARY OF AMERICAN METHODISM. 

before their publication — a gnardianship of its press 
wbicb has ever since been maintained by the Church. 
In 1804 the Concern was removed from Philadelphia 
to the city of 'New York. It had early attempted 
the publication of a monthly magazine, in imitation 
of "Wesley's periodical, but failed, till 1818, when 
the Methodist Magazine was begun ; it still prosper- 
ously continues under the title of the Methodist 
Quarterly He view. In 1824 the Concern secured 
premises of its own on Crosby-street, with presses, 
bindery, etc. In 1823 the "Youth's Instructor," a 
monthly work, was begun. The same spirit of enter- 
prise led to the publication of the Christian Advocate 
and Journal, which appeared, for the first time, on 
the 9th of September, 1826. The success of the Ad- 
vocate was remarkable. " In a very short time," writes 
Dr. Bangs, one of its original publishers, " its number 
of subscribers far exceeded every other paper published 
in the United States, being about twenty-five thou- 
sand ; and it soon increased to thirty thousand, and 
was probably read by more than one hundred and 
twenty thousand persons, young and old." It should 
be noticed, also, that, at the earnest request of Meth- 
odists west of the mountains, the General Conference 
of 1820 authorized the establishment of a branch of 
the Book Concern in Cincinnati, a precedent which 
led to secondary branches in various parts of the 
country. The rapid increase of the business very 



DIFFUSION OF LITERATUEE. 159 



soon led to the necessity of enlarging its buildings. 
Accordingly all the vacant ground in Crosby-street 
was occupied. But even these additions were found 
insuflicient to accommodate the several departments 
of labor, so as to furnish the supply of books, now 
in constantly increasing demand. To meet this 
deficiency five lots were purchased in Mulberry- 
street, between Broome and Spring streets, and one 
building erected in the rear for a printing office and 
bindery, and another of larger dimensions projected. 

Soon after the General Conference of 1832, the 
agents began the erection of the front building on 
Mulberry-street; and in the month of September, 
1833, the entire establishment was removed into the 
new buildings. In these commodious rooms, with ef- 
ficient agents and editors at work, everything seemed 
to be going on prosperously, when suddenly in 1836 
the entire property was consumed by fire. The 
Church thus lost not less than two hundred and fifty 
thousand dollars. The buildings, all the printing 
and binding materials, a vast quantity of books, 
bound and in sheets, a valuable library which the 
editor had been collecting for years, were in a few 
hours destroyed. Fortunately the "Concern" was 
not in debt. By hiring an office temporarily, and 
employing outside printers, the agents soon resumed 
their business, the smaller works were put to press, 
and " the Church's herald of the news, the Christian 



160 CENTENARY OF AMERICAN METHODISM. 

Advocate and Journal, soon took its flight again 
(thougli tlie first number after the fire had its wings 
much shortened) through the symbolical heavens, 
carrying the tidings of our loss, and of the liberal 
and steady efforts which were making to reinvigorate 
the paralyzed Concern." At the General Confer- 
ence of 1836 the plan of a new building was sub- 
mitted and approved, and the agents entered upon 
their work with energy and perseverance. The new 
buildings went up with all convenient dispatch, in a 
much better style, more durable, better adapted to 
their use, and safer against fire than the former. 
The front edifice is one hundred and twenty-one 
feet in length and thirty in breadth, four stories 
high above the basement, with offices for the agents 
and clerks, a bookstore, committee rooms, etc. The 
building in the rear is sixty-five feet in length, thirty 
in breadth, and four stories high, and is used for 
stereotyping, printing, binding, etc. 

In our day the Methodist Book Concern, aside 
from that of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, 
which was founded by a division of its funds, com- 
prises two branches, eastern and western, and seven 
depositories, with an aggregate capital of more than 
$837,000. Four " Book Agents," appointed by the 
General Conference, manage its business. It has 
twelve editors of its periodicals, nearly five hundred 
clerks and operatives, and between twenty and 



DIFFUSION OF LITEEATURE. 



161 



thirty cylinder and power presses constantly in oper- 
ation. It publislies above five hundred ".General 
Catalogue " bound books, besides many in the Ger- 
man and other languages, and about fifteen hund- 
red Sunday-school volumes. Its Tract publications 
number about nine hundred in. various tongues. 
Its periodicals are a mighty agency, i^icluding one 
Quarterly Eeview, four monthlies, one semi-monthly, 
and eight TreeHies, with an aggregate circulation of 
over one million of copies per month. Its quarterly 
and some of its weeklies have a larger circulation 
than any other periodicals, of the same class, in the 
nation, probably in the world. 

The influence of this great institution, in the dif- 
fusion of popular literature and the creation of a 
taste for reading among the great masses of the 
denomination, has been incalculable. It has scat- 
tered periodicals and books all over the valley of tlie 
Mississippi. Its sales in that great domain, in the 
quadrennial period ending with January 31, 1864, 
amounted to about $1,200,000. If Methodism had 
made no other contribution to the progress of knowl- 
edge and civilization in the Is^ew World than that 
of this powerful institution, this alone would suffice 
to vindicate its claim to the respect of the enlight- 
ened world. Its ministry has often been falsely dis- 
paraged as unfavorable to intelligence ; but it should 

be borne in mind that its ministry founded this stu- 

11 



162 CENTENARY OF AMERICAN METHODISM. 

pendoiis means of popular intelligence, and has con- 
tinued to work it with an increasing success up to the 
present time. They have been, as we have seen, 
its salesmen; they have scattered its publications 
over their circuits. Wesley enjoined this service 
upon them in their Discipline. " Carry books with 
you on evqfy round," he said ; " leave no stone 
unturned in this work and thus have they spread 
knowledge in their courses over the whole land, and 
built up their unparalleled " Book Concern." There 
has never been an instance of defalcation on the part 
of its Agents;" it has never failed in any of the 
jfinancial revulsions of the country; and it is now 
able, by its large capital, to meet any new literary 
necessity of the denomination. 



\ 



ITS EDUCATIONAL EFFORTS. 



163 



CHAPTEE III. 

ITS EDUCATIONAL EFFORTS. 

Cradled in a uniyersitj, and trained by sncTi men 
as the "WesleySj Fletcher, Benson, Coke, Clarke, Wat- 
son, Methodism could not be indifferent, much less 
hostile, to the education of the people, though its 
poverty, and its absorption in more directly moral 
labors for their elevation, did not at first allow much 
scope to its educational measures. Wesley, how- 
ever, never lost sight of such measures ; and it is 
an interesting fact, that in the year which is recog- 
nized as the epoch of Methodism, the date of its 
first field preaching, and among the miserable peo- 
ple where the latter began, it also began the first 
of its literary institutions. And if anything could 
enhance the interest of this fact, it is that the 
founders of both Methodistic parties, Calvinistic and 
Arminian, shared in the founding of the first Meth- 
odist seminary. Whitefield laid the corner-stone of 
the Kingswood School ; and kneeling upon the 
ground, surrounded by reclaimed and weeping col- 
liers, prayed that " the gates of hell " might not 
prevail against it ; while the prostrate multitude, 
now awakeued to a new intellectual as well as moral 



164 CENTENARY OF AMERICAN METHODISM. 

life, responded with hearty Amens. "Wesley reared 
it by funds which he reserved from the income of 
his college fellowship or received from his followers. 
It was the germ of the later institution which bears 
its name, and which has become an educational 
asylum for the sons of itinerant preachers. Its ac- 
commodations were subsequently found to be insuffi- 
cient for the growing numbers of such pupils, and the 
estate of "Woodhouse Grove," not far from Leeds, 
was purchased for a second institution of the same 
character. In our day from two hundred to two 
hundred and fifty sons of preachers and mission- 
aries are educated within them, and gratuitously 
boarded and clothed during a term of six years. 
The Connection has expended between £300,000 
and £400,000 upon these seminaries. Wesley also 
early projected schools for poor children at New- 
castle and London. His preaching-house at the 
former place was called the Orphan-House, and its 
deed provided that it should maintain a school of 
forty poor children, with a master and mistress. Its 
site is now occupied by a substantial edifice for a 
Mixed and Infants' Wesleyan Day School, and also 
a Girls' Industrial School. More than four hundred 
children are daily receiving instruction within its 
walls. He maintained for years, also, a school at 
the Old Foundry. 
As early as his first conference, in 1744, Wesley 



ITS EDUCATIONAL EFFORTS. 



165 



proposed a theological school or " Seminary for 
Laborers." It could not then be attempted for 
want of funds. The project was reconsidered at 
the next session, and failed for the same reason. 
Kingswood School was made a kind of substitute 
for it, but the original design was never abandoned, 
and is embodied to-day in the two effective " Theo- 
logical Institutions" of Richmond and Didsbury, 
and the two " Biblical Institutes " of American 
Methodism. Such were some of the efforts for edu- 
cation made by the Methodism of Wesley's day. 
They have since given origin to a system of educa- 
tional provisions as extensive, if not as effective, as 
belongs to any other English or American Protest- 
ant body, except the Anglican and Scotch Estab- 
lishments : to the Wesley College in Sheffield, the 
Collegiate Institution in Taunton, (both of them in 
a collegiate relation to the University of London,) 
the Wesleyan IsTormal Institution at Westminster, 
whose stately buildings cost $200,000, and accom- 
modate more than one hundred students preparing 
to be teachers ; to a grand scheme of Day Schools 
which at present comprises nearly five hundred 
schools and sixty thousand pupils. 

American Methodism early shared this interest of 
the parent body in education. In the year of its form- 
al organization (1784:) Coke and Asbury projected the 
Cokesbury College, and laid its foundations the next 



166 CENTENARY OF AMERICAN METHODISM. 

year at Abingdon, twenty-five miles from Baltimore. 
In 1787 Asbury consecrated and opened it with public 
ceremonies. In 1795 it was destroyed by fire, but a 
second edifice was soon after secured in Baltimore ; 
this, however, shared the fate of its predecessor. It 
has been supposed that these disasters not only dis- 
couraged Asbury, but led him fallaciously to infer that 
Providence designed not the denomination to devote 
its energy to education. It was far otherwise, how- 
ever, with that great man ; he no longer believed that 
collegiate or pretentious institutions of learning 
should be attempted by the Church while yet in 
its infancy, but he never abandoned the design of 
secondary or more practically adapted institutions. 
He formed, indeed a grand scheme, for the estab- 
lishment of academies, all over the territorv of the 
denomination. As far south as Georgia, contribu- 
tions in land and tobacco were received for the 
purpose; and in the yet frontier settlements of 
Kentucky, such institutions were attempted under 
his auspices. At Bethel, Kentucky, an edifice and 
organization was really obtained, but financially 
broke down at last. In 1818 Dr. Samuel K. Jen- 
nings and other Methodists attempted a college in 
Baltimore, but this also failed. No failures, how- 
ever, no discouragement, could obliterate from the 
mind of the denomination the conviction of its 
responsibility for the education of the increasing 



ITS EDUCATIONAL EFFOETS. 



167 



masses of its people. la 1820 tlie General Con- 
ference recommended that all tlie Annual Confer- 
ences should establish seminaries within their 
boundaries ; thus proposing to supply the whole 
republic with such schools, though with consider- 
able territorial intervals. This demonstration of 
interest for education, in the supreme body of the 
Church, was prompted by the spontaneous enter- 
prise of the ministry and the people, who, three 
years before, had, chiefly under the guidance of Dr. 
Martin Enter, started an institution in Is'ew En- 
gland, (at New Market, N. H.,) still distinguished, in 
its later location, at Wilbraham, Mass., and in 1819 
another, chiefly under the guidance of Dr. ISTathan 
Bangs, in New York city, afterward transferred 
to White Plains, N. Y. The impulse thus given 
not only produced numerous academies, but led, 
in 1823, to the beginning of Augusta College, 
Ky., whose edifice was erected in 1825, and com- 
menced the series of modern collegiate institu- 
tions under the patronage of the Church, so 
that by the General Conference of 1832, says 
the biographer of Hedding, Bishop Clark, " the 
Wesleyan University had been established at Mid- 
dletown. Conn., and Dr. "Wilbur Fisk, of the New 
England Conference, was at its head, and John 
M. Smith, of the New York Conference, one of the 
professors. Madison College, now extinct, but whose 



168 Cj:NTE]srARY OF AMERICAlSr METHODISM. 



place has since been supplied by Alleghany College, 
had gone into successful operation, in "Western Penn- 
sylvania ; J. H. Fielding had succeeded H. B. Bas- 
com as president, and H. J. Clark was one of the 
professors; both were roembers of the Pittsburgh 
Conference. Augusta College had been established 
under the patronage of the Kentucky and Ohio 
Conferences ; Martin Puter was president, and H. B. 
Bascom, J. S. Tomlinson, J. P. Durbin, and Burr 
H. M'Cown, were professors ; all of them members 
of the Kentucky Conference except J. P. Durbin, 
who belonged to the Ohio. In the south-west, La- 
grange College had been established ; Robert. Paine 
was president, and E. D. Simms one of the pro- 
fessors. In Yirginia, Randolph Macon College had 
been established, and M. P. Parks, of the Virginia 
Conference, was one of its professors, and Stephen 
Olin was soon after placed at its head. Thus it 
will be seen that no less than five colleges had 
sprung into existence in an incredibly short time, 
and were already in successful operation under the 
supervision of the Church. Several conference 
seminaries also had been established ; such were the 
Cazenovia Seminary, the Maine Wesleyan Seminary, 
Wilbraham Academy, Genesee Wesleyan Seminary, 
Shelbyville Female Academy, and others, which 
were in successful operation in different parts of the 
Church," 



ITS EDUCATIOJs^AL EFFORTS. 



169 



The Church could not pause here. Wesley, as we 
have seen, had proposed ministerial education at his 
very first conference, and the British Methodists had 
embodied the proposition in two imposing "theo- 
logical institutions." The Xew England Methodists 
agitated the question in their Church periodical, 
and in 1839 a convention was called, in Boston, to 
provide such* an institution. It was founded with 
the title of the Biblical Institute ;^t struggled through 
severe adversities, was at first connected with the 
Wesley an University, Middletown, Conn., then with 
the Methodist Seminary, at ITewbury, Yt., but at last 
was located in Concord, Js". H., where it has exerted 
no inconsiderable influence upon the character of the 
Is'ew England Methodist ministry. In 1845 the 
Eev. John Dempster, D. D., of In ew Tork city, 
became its professor of theology. He threw his 
remarkable energy into the cause of ministerial 
education throughout the denomination, and not 
only forced along the ISTew England institution 
against formidable discouragements, but became a 
leading founder of the north-western seminary at 
Evanston, 111., where a Chicago Methodist lady, 
by the gift of property amounting to $300,000, gave 
endowment and her name to the Garrett Biblical 
Institute. 

Thus boarding academies, colleges, and theolog- 
ical seminaries, have rapidly grown up in the 



170 CENTENARY OF AMERICAI^ METHODISM. 

denomination till the Methodist Episcopal Church 
alone now reports no less than 25 colleges, (including 
theological schools,) having 158 instructors; 5,345 
students; $3,055,861 endowments and other prop- 
erty; and 105,531 volumes in their libraries. It 
reports also 77 academies, with 556 instructors and 
17,761 students, 10,462 of whom are females, mak- 
ing an aggregate of 102 institutions, with 714 in- 
structors and 23,10^ students. The Southern divi- 
sion of the denomination reported before the war 
12 colleges and 77 academies, with 8,000 students, 
making an aggregate for the two bodies of 191 insti- 
tutions and 31,106 students. 

The moral and social influence, in England and 
America, of such a series of educational provisions, 
reaching from the first year of Methodism to our 
own day, must be incalculable; and could it point 
the world to no other monuments of its usefulness, 
these would suffice to establish its claims as one of 
the effective means of the moral progress of the 
English race in both hemispheres since Wesley 
began his singular career.^ 

* The limits of this work will not admit of more detail in these 
important facts. I give, however, a tabular view of Methodist 
educational institutions in the United States, as reported in 1865, in 
the Appendix No. lY. 



ITS SUITOAY-SCHOOL ENTERPRISE. 171 



CHAPTEE lY. 

ITS SUXDAY-SCHOOL ENTEEPRISE. 

Methodism has an honorable place in the history 
of Sunday-schools. As early as 1769 a young Meth- 
odist, Hannah Ball, established a Sunday-school in 
Wycombe, England, and was instrumental in training 
many children in the knowledge of the Holy Scrip- 
tures. Doubtless similar attempts were made before 
that time, but they were only anticipations of the mod- 
ern institution of Sunday-schools. In 1781, while 
another Methodist young woman (afterward the wife 
of the celebrated lay preacher, Samuel BradburUj) 
was conversing in Gloucester with Robert Eaikes, 
a benevolent citizen of that town and publisher of 
the Gloucester Journal, he pointed to groups of 
neglected children in the street, and asked : What 
can we do for them ? " She answered : Let us teach 
them to read and take them to Church ! " He imme- 
diately proceeded to try the suggestion, and the 
philanthropist and his female friend attended the first 
company of Sunday-scholars to the Church, exposed 
to the comments and laughter of the populace as 
they passed along the street with their ragged proces- 
sion. Such was the origin of our present Sunday- 



173 CENTENAEY OF AMEEICAN METHODISM. 

school, an institution wMcli has perhaps done more 
for the Church and the social improvement of Protest- 
ant communities than any other agency of modern 
times, the pulpit excepted. Eaikes and his humble 
assistant conducted the experiment without ostenta- 
tion. 'Not till ITovember 3, 1783, did he refer to it 
in his public journal: In 1784 he published in that 
paper an account of his plan. This sketch imme- 
diately arrested the attention of Wesley, who inserted 
the entire article in the January number of the 
Arminian Magazine for 1785, and exhorted his people 
to adopt the new institution. " They took his ad- 
vice," says an historian of Methodism, and " labor- 
ing, hard-working men and women began to in- 
struct their neighbors' children, and to go with them 
to the house of God on the Lord's day." The same 
year, as we learn from a letter of Mary Fletcher, 
her husband, " lately hearing of Sunday-schools, 
thought much upon them, and then set about the 
work." He soon had three hundred children under 
instruction, and diligently trained them till his last 
illness. He drew up proposals for six such schools in 
Coalbrook Dale, Madeley, and Madeley Wood. He 
wrote an essay on " the Advantages likely to Arise 
from Sunday-Schools," and designed to prepare small 
publications for their use, but his death cut off his 
plans. 

Wesley's earliest notice of Sunday-schools is in his 



ITS SUNDAY-SCHOOL ENTERPEISE. 173 



Journal for July IS, ITSi, the year of Eaikes's pub- 
lished account of them. He speaks of them prophet- 
ically : " I jBLud these schools springing up wherever 
I go ; perhaps God may have a deeper end therein 
than men are aware of ; who knows but some of these 
schools maybe nurseries for Christians ? " They were 
introduced into the metropolis by the Calvinistic Meth- 
odist, Rowland Hill, in 1TS6 ; and in the same year 
'they were begun in the United States- by the Method- 
ist bishop, Francis Asbury, and this first Sunday- 
school of the New TTorld prefigured one of the most 
important later advantages of the institution, by 
giving a useful preacher to the Methodist Episcopal 
Church. Wesley mentions in 1786, that five hundred 
and fifty children were taught in the Sunday-school 
of his society at Bolton, and the next year he found 
there eight hundred, taught by eighty "masters." 
Eichard Rodda, one of his preachers, records that, in 
1786, he formed a Sunday-school in Chester, and 
soon had nearly seven hundred children "under 
regular masters." "Wesley wrote to him in the begin- 
ning of 1787 : " I am glad you have taken in hand 
that blessed work of setting up Sunday-schools in 
Chester. It seems these will be one great means of 
reviving religion throughout the nation. I wonder 
Satan has not yet sent out some able champion 
against them." On the 18th of April, 1788, Wesley 
preached at Wigan " a sermon for the Sunday- 



174 CENTENARY OF AMERICAN METHODISM. 



schoolSj" and " the people flocked from all quarters 
in a manner that never was seen before." The year 
before his death he wrote to Charles Atmore, an 
itinerant preacher: ^^I am glad yon have set np 
Sunday-schools at JSTewcastle. This is one of the best 
institutions which has been seen in Europe for some 
centuries." Thus is Methodism historically connect- 
ed with both the initiation and outspread of this 
important institution. Under the impulse of its zeal 
the Sunday-school was soon almost universally estab- 
lished in its societies. A similar interest for it pre- 
vailed among other religious bodies ; and in three 
years after Eaikes's published account of it^ more 
than two hundred thousand children were receiving 
instruction from its thousands of teachers. The Irish 
Conference of 1794 voted : " Let Sunday-schools be es- 
tablished as far as possible in all the towns of this king- 
dom where we have societies and in March, 1798, a 
" Methodist Sunday-School Society " was formed at 
City Eoad Chapel, London. In the following Decem- 
ber Drs. Coke and Whitehead preached the first 
sermons before it. In our day Methodism, exclusive 
of all minor sects which bear the name, has under its 
direction an army of nearly 500,000 scholars and 
more than 80,000 teachers in England and Scotland. 

For many years American Methodism made no 
provision for the general organization or affiliation of 
its Sunday-schools. Its Book Concern issued some 



ITS SUNDAY-SCHOOL ENTERPEISE. 175 

volumes suitable for their libraries, chiefly by the 
labors of Eev. Dr. Durbin, who prepared its first 
Library Yolume and its first Question Book ; but no 
adequate, no systematic attention was given to this 
sort of literature. It was obvious, on a moment's 
refiection, that an almost illimitable field for the 
enlargement of the business of the Concern and 
the difiusion of useful knowledge was at its com- 
mand in this direction. Accordingly the " Union " 
was organized on the 2d of April, 1827. Dr. Bangs 
says : " The measure indeed was very generally 
approved, and hailed with grateful delight by our 
friends and brethren throughout the country. It 
received the sanction of the several Annual Confer- 
ences, which recommended the people of their charge 
to form auxiliaries in every circuit and station, and 
send to the general depository in New York for 
their books ; and such were the zeal and unanimity 
with which they entered into this work that at the 
first annual meeting of the society there were re- 
ported 251 auxiliaries, 1,025 schools, 2,048 superin- 
tendents, 10,290 teachers, and 63,240 scholars, besides 
above 2,000 managers and visitors. Never, there- 
fore, did an institution go into operation under more 
favorable circumstances, or was hailed with a more 
universal joy, than the Sunday-School Union of the 
Methodist Episcopal Church." This great success, 
however, could not save it from the misfortunes of 

I 



176 CENTENAEY OF AMERICAN METHODISM. 



bad management. Under " an injudicious attempt," 
writes Dr. Bangs many years later, " to amalga- 
mate the Bible, Tract, and Sunday-School Societies 
together, by which the business of these several 
societies might be transacted by one board of man- 
agement," and by other causes, it declined, if indeed 
it did not fail, until resuscitated by the zeal of some 
IS'ew York Methodists and by an act of the General 
Conference of IS-iO. It passed through modifica- 
tions till it assumed its present efi'ective form of 
organization, and grew into colossal proportions 
under the labors of its indefatigable secretaries, 
Eev. Drs. Kidder and Wise. It now has (aside 
from its offspring in the Methodist Episcopal 
Church South) 13,400 schools, more than 150,000 
teachers and officers, and near 918,000 schol- 
ars, about 19,000 of whom are reported as con- 
verted during the last year. There are in the libra- 
ries of these schools more than 2,529,000 volumes. 
They are supported at an annual expense of more 
than §216,000, besides nearly $18,000 given to the 
(Jnion for the assistance of poor schools. There are 
circulated among them semi-monthly nearly 260,000 
" Sunday-School Advocates," the juvenile periodical 
of the Union. The numbers of conversions among 
pupils of the schools, as reported for the last eight- 
een years, amounts to more than 285,000, show- 
ing that much of the extraordinary growth of the 



ITS SUJSDAY-SCHOOL EN^TERPRISE. 177 



Churcii is attributable to this mighty agency. Tho 
Union has four periodicals for teachers and scholars, 
two in English and two in German, and their aggre- 
gate circulation is nearly 300,000 per number. -Its 
catalogue of Sunday-school books comprises more 
than 2,300 different works, of which more than a 
million of copies are issued annually. Including 
other issues, it has nearly 2,500 publications adapted 
to the use of Sunday-schools. In fine, few if any 
institutions of American Methodism wield a mightier 

power than its Sunday-School Union. 

12 



ITS HISSIOJS'ARY LABORS. 



179 



CHAPTER Y. 

ITS j^ISSIOXAEY LABORS. 

A DISTING-UISHED Englisli writer, a layman of the 
Church of England, has said that " the Methodism 
of the last century, even when considered apart 
from its consequences, must always be thought wor- 
thy of the most serious regard: that, in fact, that 
great religious movement has, immediately or re- 
motely, so given an impulse to Christian feeling 
and profession, on all sides, that it has come to 
present itself as the starting-point of our modern 
religious history ; that the fleld-preaching of Wesley 
and Whitefield, in 1739, was the event whence the 
religious epoch, now current, must date its commence- 
ment ; that back to the events of that time must we 
look, necessarily, as often as we seek to trace to its 
source what is most characteristic of the present time ; 
and that yet this is not all, for the Methodism of the 
past age points forward to the next-coming develop- 
ment of the powers of the Gospel." ^ 

These remarks are especially true in respect to the 
relation of Methodism to modern Christian Missions. 
The idea of religious Missions is as old as Chris- 
* Isaac Tajlor's Wesley and Methodism, Preface. 



180 CENTENARY OF AMERICAN METHODISM. 

tianity, and has been exemplified by the Papal Church 
through much of its history and in the ends of the 
world. The Moravians early embodied it in their 
system. In the Protestantism of England it had but 
feeble sway till the epoch of Methodism. That 
sublime form of it which now characterizes English 
Protestantism in both hemispheres, and which pro- 
poses the evangelization of the whole race, appeared 
in the latter part of the eighteenth century. Societies 
for the propagation of the Gospel had previously ex- 
isted in Great Britain, but they were provided chiefly, 
if not exclusively, for the Christianization of countries 
which, by reason of their political dependence upon 
England, were deemed to have special claims on 
British Christianity — the inhabitants of India and 
the Indians of North America. An historian of mis- 
sions, writing in 18M, says : " It was not until almost 
within the last fifty years that the efforts of the re- 
ligious bodies by whom Christian missions are now 
most vigorously supported were commenced." ^ 

Methodism was essentially a missionary movement, 
domestic and foreign. It initiated not only the 
spirit, but the practical plans of modern English 
missions. Bishop Coke so represented the enterprise 
in his own person for many years as to supersede the 
necessity of any more formal organization of it, but it 
was none the less real and energetic. The historian 

* Ellis's History of the London Missionary Society, voL i, p. 3, 



ITS MISSIONARY LABORS. 



181 



just cited says : " The Wesleyan Missionary Society 
was formed in 1817, but the first Wesleyan mission- 
aries who went out, under the superintendence of the 
Eey. Dr. Coke, entered the British colonies in 1786. 
The Baptist Missionary Society was established in 
1792 ; the London Missionary Society in 1795 ; and 
the Edinburgh or Scottish and the Glasgow Mission- 
ary Societies in 1796. The subject also engaged the 
attention of many pious persons belonging to the Es- 
tablished Church, besides those connected with the 
London Missionary Society, and by members of that 
communion the Church Missionary Society was organ- 
ized in the first year of the present century." The 
London Missionary Society, embracing most Dissent- 
ing bodies of England, arose under the influence of 
Calvinistic Methodism, and the Church Missionary 
Society sprang from the evangelical Low Church 
party which Methodism, Calvinistic and Arminian, 
had originated in the Establishment, Yenn, the 
son of the Methodist churchman Venn, being its 
projector. 

Though Bishop Coke represented the Arminian- 
Methodist Mission interest, as its founder, secretary, 
treasurer, and collector, it really took a distinct 
form some six years before the formation of the 
first of the above named societies. Coke spent 
more than a year in bringing the ITegro missions 
before the English people immediately after his 



182 CENTENARY OF AMERICAN METHODISM. 

second visit to the "West Indies. In 1Y86 a formal 
address was issued to the public in behalf of a com- 
prehensive scheme of Methodist missions. It was 
entitled " An Address to the Pious and Benevolent, 
proposing an Annual Subscription for the Support of 
Missionaries in the Highlands and adjacent Islands 
of Scotland, the Isles of Jersey, Guernsey, and 'New- 
foundland, the West Indies, and the Provinces of 
Nova Scotia and Quebec. By Thomas Coke, LL.D. 
1786." It speaks of " a mission intended to be estab- 
lished in the British dominions in Asia," but which 
was postponed till these more inviting fields should 
be occupied. This scheme was called in the address 
an " Institution ;" it was really such ; though not 
called a society, it was one in all essential respects ; 
and if the fact that it was not an extra-ecclesiastical 
plan, but a part of the system of Methodism, should 
detract from its claim of precedence in respect to 
later institutions of the kind, that consideration 
would equally detract from the Moravian missions, 
which were conducted in a like manner. The Ad- 
dress filled several pages, and was prefaced by a let- 
ter from Wesley indorsing the whole plan. 

The next year (1787) the Wesley an Missions bore 
the distinctive title of " Missions established by the 
Methodist Society." At the last Conference attended 
by Wesley (1790) a Committee of nine preachers, 
of which Coke was chairman, was appointed to take 



ITS MISSIONARY LABORS. 



183 



charge of this new interest. Coke continued to con- 
duct its chief business ; but the committee were his 
standing council, and formed, in fact, a Mission 
Board of Managers two years before the organi- 
zation of the first of British missionary societies. 
Collections had been taken in many of the circuits 
for the institution, and in 1793 the Conference for- 
mally ordered a general collection for it. Coke 
published accounts of its '^receipts and disburse- 
ments." The amount for 1787 was £1,167. The 
names of eminent Churchmen, Dissenters, and 
Calvinistic as well as Arminian Methodists, are 
reported on its list of subscribers. Among them 
are those of Whitbread, Wilberforce, the Thorn- 
tons, the Earl of Dartmouth, Earl of Belvidere, Lord 
Elliott, Lady Mary Fitzgerald, Lady Maxwell, Sir 
Charles Middleton, (afterward Lord Barham,) Sir 
Kichard Hill, Sir John Carter, Sir William Forbes, 
Lady Smythe, Hon. Mrs. Carteret, and the Hon. 
Mrs. Bouverie; the Eev. Mr. Dodwell, of Lincoln- 
shire ;^ Melville Home, of Madeley ; Berridge, of 
Everton ; Abdy, of Horsleydown ; Dr. Gillies, of 
Glasgow ; Simpson, of Macclesfield ; Pentycross, of 
"Wallingford ; Easterbrook, of Bristol ; Kennedy, of 
Teston, and others. 

In this manner did Methodism early prompt the 

* This clergyman (of the Establishment) several years afterward 
made a contribution of £10,000 to the Wesleyan Missionary Society. 



184 CENTENARY OF AMERICAN METHODISM. 

British Chnrclies, and call forth the energies of the 
British people, in plans of religions benevolence for 
the whole world. Its previous missions in Scotland, 
Wales, Ireland, and the Channel Islands did much 
for the reformation of the domestic population. 
Besides its efforts in 1786 in the West Indies, it 
began its evangelical labors in France as early as 
1791, and its great schemes in Africa in 1811 ; 
in Asia in 1814; in Australasia in 1815; in Poly- 
nesia in 1822 ; until, from the first call of Wesley 
for American evangelists, in the Conference of 1769, 
down to our day, we see the grand enterprise reach- 
ing to the shores of Sweden, to Germany, JFrance, 
and the Upper Alps ; to Gibraltar, and Malta ; to 
the banks of the Gambia, to Sierra Leone, and to 
the Gold Coast ; to the Cape of Good Hope ; to 
Ceylon, to India, and to China ; to the Colonists and 
Aboriginal tribes of Australia ; to New Zealand, and 
the Friendly and Fiji Islands ; to the islands of the 
Western, as well as of the Southern Hemisphere; 
and from the Gulf of St. Lawrence to Puget's Sound. 
From 1803 to the present time Wesleyan Methodism 
has contributed more than twenty millions of dollars 
for foreign evangelization. In England the " Church 
Missionary Society" alone exceeds its annual col- 
lections for the foreign field ; but the Wesleyan So- 
ciety enrolls more communicants in its Mission 
Churches than all other British missionary societies 



ITS MISSIOXAEY LABOES. 



185 



combined. The historian of religion during the last 
and present centuries would find it difl&cult to point 
to a more magnificent monument of Christianity. 
Methodism, gathering its hosts mostly from the mines 
and cottages of England, has embodied them in this 
sublime movement for the redemption of the world. 
Its poor have kept its treasury full. They have sup- 
plied hundreds if not thousands of their sons and 
daughters as evangelists to the heathen ; and while 
they have thus been enabled to do good in the ex- 
tremities of the earth, they have reaped still greater 
good from the reacting influence of their liberality 
upon themselves. They have received from it the 
sentiment of self-respect which comes from well- 
doing. They have been led to habits of frugality 
that their poverty might be consecrated by liberality. 
They have been elevated above the perversion of 
local or personal sentiments, by sympathies with 
their whole race. They have been led to a knowl- 
edge, of the geography of the world, and to habits 
of reflection upon its religious, social, and political 
interests, by the habitual reading of missionary intel- 
ligence. They have been brought into closer social 
as well as Christian communion with one another 
by their frequent missionary meetings. Thousands 
of them have acquired habits of public usefulness 
by the management of their missionary afi'airs ; and 
sentiments of universal philanthropy and religious 



186 CENTEKARY OF AMERICAN METHODISM. 



heroism have been spread through their ranks to 
ennoble theii' own souls while saving the souls of 
others. 

Coke, the first bishop of American Methodism, the 
first Protestant bishop of the new world, was to the 
end of his life the representative character of Meth- 
odist Missions. In his old age he offered himself to 
the British Conference as a missionary to the East 
Indies ; he died on the voyage, and was buried in the 
Indian Ocean. His death struck not only a kneU 
through the Church, but a summons for it to rise uni- 
versally and march around the world. He had long 
entertained the idea of universal evangelization as 
the exponent characteristic of the Methodist move- 
ment. The influence of the movement on English 
Protestantism had tended to such a result, for in both 
England and America nearly all denominations had 
felt the power of the great revival, not only during 
the days of "Whitefield and Wesley, but ever since. 
Anglo-Saxon Christianity, in both hemispheres, had 
been quickened into new life, and had experienced a 
change amounting to a moral revolution. The sub- 
lime apostolic idea of evangelization in all the 
earth, and till all the earth should be Christianized, 
had not only been restored, as a practical conviction, 
but had become pervasive and dominant in the con- 
sciousness of the Churches, and was manifestly thence- 
forward to shape the religious history of the Protest- 



ITS MISSIONARY LABORS. 



187 



ant world. The great fermentation ot the mind of 
the civilized nations — the resurrection, as it may be 
called, of popular thought and power — cotempora- 
neous in the civil and religious worlds, in the former 
by the American and French Revolutions, in the lat- 
ter' by the Methodist movement, seemed to presage 
a new history of the human race. And history is 
compelled to record, with the frankest admission of 
the characteristic defects of Thomas Coke, that no 
man, not excepting Wesley or Whitefield, more com- 
pletely represented the religious significance of those 
eventful times. 

Though American Methodism was many years 
without a distinct missionary organization, it was 
owing to the fact that its whole Church organization 
was essentially a missionary scheme. It was, in fine, 
the great Home Mission enterprise of the north 
American continent, and its domestic work demand- 
ed all its resources of men and money. It early 
began, however, special labors among the aborigines 
and slaves. The history of some of these labors 
would be an exceedingly interesting and even roman- 
tic record, but our limits admit but this passing 
allusion to them. The year 1819 is memorable as the 
epoch of the formal organization of its missionary 
work. Dr. N"athan Bangs, long distinguished as its 
secretary and chief representative, was also its chief 
founder. He made it the theme of much preliminary 



188 CENTENARY OF AMEEICAN METHODISM. 

conversation with his coUeagnes and the principal 
Methodist laymen of JSTew York city. Eev. Dr. 
Laban Clark introduced it by a resolution to the 
attention of the metropolitan preachers at their 
weekly meeting, " consisting," says Dr. Bangs, " of 
Freeborn Garrettson, Samuel Merwin, Laban Clark^ 
Samuel Howe, Seth Crowell, Thomas Thorp, Joshua 
Soule, Thomas Mason, and myself. After an inter- 
change of thoughts the resolution was adopted, and 
Garrettson, Clark, and myself were appointed a com- 
mittee to draft a constitution. When this committee 
met we agreed to write, each, a constitution, then 
come together, compare them, and adopt the one 
which should be considered the most suitable. The 
one prepared by myself was adopted, submitted to the 
Preachers' Meeting, and, after some slight verbal alter- 
ations, was finally approved. We then agreed to call 
a public meeting in the Forsyth-street Church on the 
evening of the 5th of April, 1819, which was accord- 
ingly done. I was called to the chair, and after the 
reading of the constitution Joshua Soule moved its 
adoption, and supported his motion by a powerful 
speech, concluding by an appeal to the people to come 
forward and subscribe it. He was seconded by Free- 
born Garrettson, who also plead in favor of the 
scheme, from his own experience in the itinerant 
field from Virginia to N"ova Scotia." The constitu- 
tion was unanimously adopted, and the following 



ITS MISSIONARY LABORS, 



189 



officers were chosen : Bishop M'Kendree, President ; 
Bishops George and Eoberts, and Nathan Bangs, 
Yice-Presidents ; Thomas Mason, Corresponding Sec- 
retary ; Joshua Soule, Treasurer ; Francis Hall, Clerk ; 
Daniel Ayres, Recording Secretary. The following 
managers were also chosen : Joseph Smith, Robert 
Mathison, Joseph Sanford, George Suckley, Samuel 
L. Waldo, Stephen Dando, Samuel B. Harper, Lan- 
caster S. Burling, "William Duval, Paul Hick, John 
Westfield, Thomas Eoby, Benjamin Disbrow, James 
B. Gascoigne, William A. Mercein, Philip J. Arcula- 
rius, James B. Oakley, George Caines, Dr. Seaman, 
Dr. Gregory, John Boyd, M. H. Smith, Nathaniel 
Jar vis, Robert Snow, Andrew Mercein, Joseph 
Moses, John Paradise, William Myers, William B. 
Skidmore, Nicholas Schureman, James Wood, Abra- 
ham Paul. The historian of the society (Dr. Strick- 
land) says: "It is obvious that almost its entire 
business was conducted by Dr. Bangs for many years. 
In addition to writing the constitution, the address 
and circular, he was the author of every Annual 
Report, with but one exception, from the organiza- 
tion of the society down to the year 1841, a period of 
twenty-two years. He filled the offices of Corre- 
sponding Secretary and Treasurer for sixteen years, 
without a salary or compensation of any kind, imtil 
his appointment to the first named office by the 
General Conference of 1836. That he has con- 



190 CENTENARY OF AMERICAN METHODISM. 



tribnted more than any other man living to give 
character to our missionary operations, by the pro- 
ductions of his pen and his laborious personal efforts, 
is a well authenticated fact, which the history of the 
Church fully attests." In this single instance of his 
manifold public life he was to be identified with a 
grand religious history. He was to see the annual 
receipts of the Society enlarged from the $823 of its 
first year to $250,374, (including its offspring of the 
Methodist Episcopal Church, South, to half a million,) 
and its total receipts, down to the last year of his life, 
more than four and a half millions,- not including the 
southern Society. He was to witness the rise (chiefiy 
under the auspices of the Society) of American-Ger- 
man Methodism, an epochal fact in the history of his 
Church, next in importance to the founding of the 
Church by Embury and Strawbridge. "Without a 
missionary for some time after its origin, the 
Society was to present to his dying gaze a list 
of nearly four hundred missionaries and more 
than thirty-three thousand mission communicants, 
representing the denomination in many parts of 
the United States, in ITorway, Sweden, Germany, 
Switzerland, Bulgaria, Africa, India, China, and 
South America. Assisting in this great work, and 
rejoicing in its triumphs, he was to outlive all its 
original officers but three, Joshua Soule, Francis 
Hall, and Daniel Ayres : and all its original mana- 



ITS MISSIONAKY LABORS. 



191 



gers save three. Dr. Seaman, James B. Oakley, and 
William B. Skidmore. 

The next General Conference, in 1820, sanctioned 
the scheme. Dr. Emory submitted an elaborate re- 
port on the subject. After reasoning at length upon 
it, he asked, Can we^ then, be listless to the cause 
of missions ? We cannot. Methodism itself is a 
missionary system. Yield the missionary spirit, and 
you yield the very life-blood of the cause. In mission- 
ary efforts our British brethren are before us. We 
congratulate them on their zeal and their success. But 
your committee beg leave to entreat this Conference 
to emulate their example." The Conference adopted, 
with some emendations, the constitution prepared for 
the Society by Dr. Bangs. He thus saw his great 
favorite measure incorporated, it may be hoped for- 
ever, into the structure of the Church. He writes: 

These doings of the Conference in relation to 
the Missionary Society exerted a most favorable 
influence upon the cause, and tended mightily to 
remove the. unfounded objections which existed in 
some minds against this organization." 

By the session of the General Conference of 1832, 
the Society's operations had extended through the 
states and territories of the nation, and had become 
a powerful auxiliary of the itinerant system of the 
Church, Hitherto it had been prosecuted as a domes- 
tic scheme, comprehending the frontier circuits, the 



192 CENTEIS'ABY OF AMERICAN METHODISM. 

slaves, the free colored people, and the Indian tribes ; 
it had achieved great success in this wide field, and 
was now strong enough to reach abroad to other 
lands. It proposed, with the sanction of this Confer- 
ence, to plant its standard on the coast of Africa, and 
send agents to Mexico and South America to ascer- 
tain the possibility of missions in those countries. 
Thus were begun those foreign operations of the 
Society which have since become its most interesting 
labors. 

Its domestic Indian missions had now become nu- 
merous, and some of them were remarkably prosper- 
ous ; attended," Dr. Bangs says, " with unparalleled 
success." In Upper Canada they numbered, in 
1831, no less than ten stations and nearly two thousand 
Indians " under religious instruction, most of whom 
were members of the Church. Among the Cherokees, 
in Georgia, they had at the same date no less than 
seventeen missionary laborers, and nearly a thousand 
Church-members. Among the Choctaws there were 
about four thousand communicants, embracing all 
the principal men of the nation, their chiefs and 
captains." And, more or less, along the whole front- 
ier, Indian Missions were established. Meanwhile 
the destitute fields of the domestic work proper were 
dotted with humble but effective mission stations, 
from the St. Lawrence to the Gulf of Mexico, and 
these stations were rapidly passing from the mission- 



ITS MISSIONAEY LABOES. 



193 



ary list to the Conference catalogue of appointments 
as self-supporting Cliurclies. 

In 1832 Melville B. Cox sailed for Africa, the first 
foreign missionary of American Methodism. He 
organized the Liberia Mission. He fell a martyr to 
the climate, but laid on that benighted continent the 
foundations of the Church, never, it may be hoped, 
to be shaken. The next year a delegation from the 
distant Flathead Indians of Oregon arrived in the 
states sohciting missionaries. Their appeal was zeal- 
ously urged through the Christian Advocate, and 
received an enthusiastic response from the Church. 
Dr. Bangs, who had been a leading promoter of the 
African Mission, now, in co-operation with Dr. Wil- 
bur risk, advocated this new claim with his utmost 
ability. Jason and Daniel Lee, and Cyrus Shepard, 
were dispatched as missionaries in the spring of 1834. 
An extraordinary scheme of labors was adopted, 
involving great expense ; but, writes Dr. Bangs, 
" the projection of this important mission had a 
most happy effect upon the missionary cause gener- 
ally. As the entire funds of the Society up to this 
time had not exceeded eighteen thousand dollars a 
year, and as this mission must necessarily cost con- 
siderable, with a view to augment the pecuniary re- 
sources of the Society, a loud and urgent call was 
made, through the columns of the ^Christian Advo- 
cate and Journal, on the friends of missions to 'come 

13 



194 CENTENAEY OF AMERICAIS' METHODISM. 



up to the help of the Lord ' in this emergency ; and 
to assist in this benevolent work, the Messrs. Lee 
were instrncted, while remaining in the civilized 
world, to travel as extensively as possible, hold mis- 
sionary meetings, and take up collections. The 
' Flathead' Mission, as it was then called, seemed to 
possess a charm, around which clustered the warm 
affections of all the friends of the missionary enter- 
prise, and special donations for the ' Flatheads ' were 
sent to the treasury with cheering liberality and 
avidity. As an evidence of the beneficial result of 
these movements, the amount of available funds had 
risen, in 1834, from $17,097 05, the sum raised in 
1833, to $35,700 15. So true is it that those who 
aim at great things, if they do not fully realize their 
hopes, will yet accomplish much." 

The surges of emigration have overwhelmed nearly 
all that grand transmontane region ; the aborigines are 
sinking out of sight beneath them ; but the Oregon 
Mission, after some useful labors among the Indians, 
became the nucleus of the Christianity and civiliza- 
tion of the new and important state which has since 
arisen on the l^orth Pacific coast. 

Meanwhile Fountain C. Pitts was sent on the mis- 
sion of inquiry to South America. In the autumn 
of 1835 he visited Eio Janeiro, Buenos Ayres, Monte 
Yideo, and otl^er places, and the Methodist South 
American Mission was founded the next year by 



ITS MISSIONARY LABORS. 



195 



Justin Spaulding. Thus had the Church borne at 
last its victorious banner into the field of foreign 
missions. It was to be tried severely in these new 
contests, but to march on through triumphs and de- 
feats till it should take foremost rank among denom- 
inations devoted to foreign evangelization. 

At the General Conference of 1836, it was found 
that the missionary cause had grown rapidly since 
the preceding session. In the last single year its 
receipts surpassed those of any preceding year by 
about twenty-two thousand dollars; and in the 
various missionary stations there had been within 
the same time an accession to the membership of 
the Church of more than four thousand converts. 
The Liberia Mission was now organized into an 
Annual Conference, and the operations of the Mis- 
sionary Society had assumed such importance, and 
involved such responsibility, as to justify, in the 
judgment of the Conference, the appointment of a 
special officer, or " Eesident Corresponding Secre- 
tary,'' who could devote his wliole attention to them. 
Of course the mind of the Conference, as indeed 
of the general Church, turned spontaneously to Dr. 
Bangs as the man for such an office, and he was 
elected by a majority which surpassed that of any 
of the three bishops, or any of the numerous editors 
and Book Agents (save one of the latter) who were 
elected by ballot at this session. 



196 CENTENAKY OF AMEEICAN METHODISM. 

At the adjournment of the Conference he returned 
to New York, and entered with energy upon his 
new functions. The first year of his secretaryship 
(1836-7) was signalized by the first recognition and 
announcement, by the Missionary Society, of one of 
the most remarkable events in the history of mod- 
ern missions, the beginning of the German Meth- 
odist Missions. Professor ISTast, a young German 
scholar of thorough but Eationalistic education, had 
been reclaimed by Methodism to the faith of the 
Reformation. In 1835 he was sent to labor among 
his countrymen in Cincinnati ; in 1836 he was ap- 
pointed by the Ohio Conference to a German charge 
on the Columbus District, comprising a circuit of 
three hundred miles and twenty-two appointments. 
Thus originated the most successful, if not the most 
important of Methodist missions ; and in the next 
Annual Report of the Society the " German Mis- 
sion," and the name of '^William ISTast," its founder 
and missionary, were first declared to the general 
Church. German Methodism rapidly extended 
through the nation, to Boston in the north-east, to 
New Orleans in the south-west. German Methodist 
Churches, circuits, districts, were organized. " In 
the brief space of fourteen years," says the historian 
of Methodist Missions, " the German Missions have 
extended all over the country, yielding seven thou- 
sand Church members, thirty local preachers, eighty- 



ITS MISSIOXARY LABOES. 



197 



three regular mission circuits and stations, and one 
hundred and eiglit missionaries. One hundred 
churches were built for German worship, and 
forty parsonages. The increase in membership dur- 
ing the past year (1848) was nearly one thousand. 
Primitive Methodism appears to have revived in the 
zeal and simplicity and self-sacrificing devotion of 
the German Methodists. May they ever retain this 
spirit! 1^0 agency has ever been employed so 
specifically adapted to effect the conversion of Ro- 
manists as that which is immediately connected with 
the German Mission enterprise. The pastoral visita- 
tions of the preachers bringing them into immediate 
contact with German Catholics, their distribution of 
Bibles and tracts, their plain, pointed, and practical 
mode of preaching, all combine to bring the truth 
to bear upon that portion of the population ; and 
the result is the conversion of hundreds from the 
errors of Romanism." The chief importance of the 
German Mission has, however, been developed since 
this date. It has not only raised up a mighty evan- 
gelical provision for the host of German emigrants 
to the 'New "World, but under the labors of Dr. 
Jacoby, it has intrenched itself in the German 
" fatherland," and is laying broad foundations for a 
European German Methodism. German Societies 
and circuits, a German Conference, a German '^Book 
Concern " and German periodicals, and a Ministerial 



198 CENTEJSTARY OF AMERICAN METHODISM. 



School, with all the other customary appliances of 
evangelical Churches, have been established ; and, in 
our day, this Teutonic Methodism comprises, on 
both sides of the Atlantic, nearly thirty thousand 
communicants, and nearly three hundred mission- 
aries. 

It is impossible here to trace in detail the further 
outspread of this great interest, especially under the 
successful administration, since 1850, of its present 
secretary, Dr. Durbin, nor is it requisite to the plan 
of the present yolume. Suffice it to say that the 
annual receipts of the Society which, the year be- 
fore his administration began, amounted to about 
$104,000, have risen to nearly $560,000, and that 
besides its very extensive domestic work, the Meth- 
odist Episcopal Church has now missions in China, 
India, Africa, Bulgaria, Germany, Switzerland, Den- 
mark, Norway, Sweden, and South America. Its 
Missions, foreign and domestic, have 1,059 circuits 
and stations, 1,128 paid laborers, (preachers and as- 
sistants,) and 105,675 communicants. The funds 
contributed to its treasury, from the beginning down 
to 1865, amount to about $6,000,000. About 350 of 
the missionaries preach in the German and Scandi- 
navian languages, and more than 30,000 of the 
communicants are German and Scandinavian. The 
Methodist Episcopal Church, South, had before the 
rebellion missions in China, among the foreign set- 



ITS MISSIONARY LABOES. 



199 



tiers in tlie United States, among the American In- 
dians, and the southern slaves. About three hund 
red and sixty of its preachers were enrolled as 
missionaries. 

American, like British Methodism, has become 
thoroughly imbued with the apostolic idea of foreign 
and universal evangelization. "With both bodies it 
is no longer an incidental or secondary attribute, but 
is inwrought into their organic ecclesiastical systems. 
It has deepened and widened till it has become the 
great characteristic of modern Methodism, raising it 
from a revival of vital Protestantism, chiefly among 
the Anglo-Saxon race, to a world-wide system of 
christianization, which has reacted on all the great 
interests of its Anglo-Saxon field, has energized and 
ennobled most of its other characteristics, and would 
seem to pledge to it a universal and perpetual sway 
in the earth. Taken in connection with the Lon- 
don and Church Missionary Societies, the British 
and Foreign Bible Society, the London Tract Soci- 
ety, to all of which Methodism gave the originating 
impulse, and the Sunday-school institution, which it 
was the first to adopt as an agency of the Church, 
it is not too much to say that it has been trans- 
forming the character of English Protestantism and 
the moral prospects of the world. Its missionary 
development has preserved its primitive energy. 
According to the usual history of religious bodies^ 



200 CENTENARY OF AMERICAN METHODISM. 



if not indeed by a law of the Imman mind, its early 
heroic character would have passed away by its 
domestic success and the cessation of the novelty 
and trials of its early cir emu stances ; but by throw- 
ing itself out upon all the world, and especially 
upon the worst citadels of paganism, it has perpet- 
uated its original militant spirit, and opened for 
itself a heroic career, which need end only with 
the universal triumph of Christianity. English 
Methodism was considered, at the death of its 
founder, a marvelous fact in British history; but 
to-day the Wesleyan missions alone comprise more 
than twice the number of the . regular preachers 
enrolled in the English Minutes in the year of 
Wesley's death, and nearly twice as many commu- 
nicants as the Minutes then reported from all 
parts of the world which had been reached by 
Methodism. The latest reported number of Mis- 
sionary communicants in the Methodist Episcopal 
Church equals nearly one half the whole membership 
of the Church in 1819, the year in which the mis- 
sionary Society was founded, and is nearly double 
the membership with which the denomination closed 
the last century, after more than thirty years of 
labors and struggles. 



ITS LOYALTY AKD PATEIOTIC SEBVICES. 201 



CHAPTER YI. 

ITS LOYALTY AXD PATEIOTIC SEETICES. 

The first American missionaries of Weslej^ being 
native Englishmen, and uncommitted to politics, 
left tlie country (all except Dempster, Asburj, and 
Whatcoat) at the ontbreak of the Revolution. The • 
infant Church therefore suffered for some time under 
the suspicion of disloyalty. The imputation ^as, 
however, unfounded. Methodism included no larger 
proportion of Toryism " than any other denomina- 
tion of the times, in the middle states, to which it 
was yet limited. "Wesley, however, strengthened this 
suspicion by publishing an abridgment of his friend 
Dr. Johnson's " Taxation Xo Tyranny," under the 
title of " A Calm Address to the American Colonies," 
recommending loyalty to the crown. It is due to 
Wesley, nevertheless, to say that, by the time the war 
really began, he took sides with the Americans. The 
very next day after the arrival in England of the 
news of the battles of Lexington and Concord, he 
wrote to Lord K'orth and the Earl of Dartmouth, 
severally, an emphatic letter. I am," he said, " a 
High-Churchman, the son of a High-Churchman, 
bred up from my childhood in the highest notions 



202 CENTENAKY OF AMERICAJT METHODISM. 



of passive obedience and non-resistance, and yet, in 
spite of all my long-rooted prejudices, I cannot avoid 
thinking these, an oppressed people, asked for noth- 
ing more than their legal rights, and that in the 
most modest and inoffensive manner that the nature 
of the thing would allow. But waiving this, I ask, 
Is it common sense to use force toward the Amer- 
icans ? Whatever has been affirmed, these men will 
not be frightened, and they will not be conquered 
easily. Some of our valiant officers say that ' two 
thousand men will clear America of these rebels.' 
1^0, nor twenty thousand, be they rebels or not, nor 
perhaps treble that number. They are strong ; they 
are valiant ; they are one and all enthusiasts, enthusi- 
asts for liberty, calm, deliberate enthusiasts. In 
a short time they will understand discipline as well 
as their assailants. But you are informed 'thej are 
divided among themselves.' So was poor Eehoboam 
informed concerning the ten tribes ; so was Philip 
informed concerning the people of the JSTetherlands. 
1^0 ; they are terribly united; they think they are 
contending for their wives, children, and liberty. 
Their supplies are at hand, ours are three thousand 
miles off. Are we able to conquer the Americans 
suppose they are left to themselves? We are not 
sure of this, nor are we sure that all our neighbors 
will stand stock still." 

Though Bishop Asbury had to keep himself con- 



ITS LOYALTY AXD PATRIOTIC SERVICES. 203 



cealed during a part of the Eevoliitionary period, lie 
was in favor of tlie independence of the colonies. 

At the organization of the denomination in 1784, 
it was the fii'st religions body of the country to 
insert in its constitutional law (in its Articles of 
Religion) a recognition of the new government, 
enforcing patriotism on its communicants. A very 
noteworthy modification (peculiarly interesting in 
our day) was made in this article in the year 
180-i. In the original article it was affirmed that 
the Congress,'' etc., are the officers of the United 
States of America, according to the division of power 
made to them by the General Act of Confederation," 
etc., the national constitution having not yet been 
adopted ; but the General Conference of 180-i, by 
a motion of Eev. Ezekiel Cooper, (a man noted 
for his sagacity,) struck out all allusion to the 

Act of Confederation," inserting in its stead the 
Constitution of the United States," etc., and declared 
that " the said states are a sovereign and inde- 
pendent nation.^^^ Methodism thus deliberately, 

* The italics are my own. A recent paper, '* The Christian Wit- 
ness," in the interest of the insurgent South, attacks the Methodist 
Episcopal Church on account of this amended Article. "We regret," 
it says, "that we have to mention in this connection what was incor- 
porated into the organization [of the Methodist Episcopal Church] 
from the beginning, but has been generahy overlooked. We refer to 
the 23d Article of Religion, which is as follows : ' The President, the 
Congress, the General Assembhes, the Governors, and the Councils 
of State, as the delegates of the people, are the rulers of the United 



204 CENTENARY OF AMERICAN METHODISM. 



and in its constitutional law, recognized that the 
" Constitution " superseded the " Act of Confedera- 
tion/' and that the republic was no longer a con- 
federacy but a nation^ and as such, supreme and 
sovereign over all its states. It was at a period of 
no little political agitation on the question of state 
sovereignty that this change was made: the Ken- 
tucky "Kesolutions of 1798," and those of Yirginia, 
1799, had become the basis of a State Rights party. 
A cotemporary Methodist preacher (Henry Boehm, 
still living) records that just previous to this time 
^Hhere was great political excitement. Federalism 
and Democracy ran high — such was the excitement 
that it separated families, and friends, and members 

States of America, according to the division of power made to them 
by the Constitution of the United States, and by the Constitutions of 
their respective States. And the said States are a sovereign and 
independent nation^ and ought not to be subject to any foreign juris- 
diction,' " The -'Witness " proceeds to say that "the language of the 
Article leans very strongly toward an anti-democratic view of ^the 
relations between the Federal and the State governments, and has 
been often so construed by the authorities of the Church since our 
present political troubles began. It has been referred to again and 
again by the Annual and General Conferences, by the official papers, 
and by the bishops and preachers, as decisive of the position which 
the Church holds upon the subject of State rights." The "Witness" 
errs in saying this form of the Article existed "from the beginning," 
but is correct in its statement of the Church's interpretation of the 
Article. After the adoption of the National Constitution, Methodism 
never doubted the sovereign nationality of the Republic, and never had 
the unstatesmanlike folly to recognize any State right of secession, or 
any sovereignty which is not subordinate to the National sovereignty. 



ITS LOYALTY AND PATEIOTIC SERVICES. 205 

of the Churcli. I was urged, on every side, to 
identify myself with one political party or the other, 
or to express an opinion. I felt sad to see what 
influence this state of feeling was producing in the 
Church." It was in such circumstances that the 
Methodist Episcopal Church took its stand for the 
N"ational Constitution. During the late civil war 
it has appealed to its Article, as expressing the 
loyal duty of all its people, and they have responded 
to the appeal with a patriotic devotion surpassed by 
no other religious communion of the country. 

The Methodist Episcopal Church was also the first 
religious body to recognize the organization of the 
national government and the presidency of "Washing- 
ton. Bishops Coke and Asbury, in the name of the 
Conference in session at New York, waited on "Wash- 
ington, then just inaugurated, on May 29, 1789, and 
Asbury read to him the address of the Conference. 
" The address," says a cotemporary preacher, and 
the answer, in a few days, were inserted in the public 
prints ; and some of the ministers and members of the 
other Churches appeared dissatisfied that the Meth- 
odists should take the lead. In a few days the other 
denominations successively followed our example." 
The Address of the Bishops was signed by Coke and 
Asbury. It said, " "We, the Bishops of the Methodist 
Episcopal Church, humbly beg leave, in the name of 
our Society, collectively, in these United States, to 



206 CENTENARY OF AMERICAN METHODISM. 



express to you the warm feelings of our hearts, and 
our sincere congratulations on your appointment to 
the presidentship of these states. We are conscious, 
from the signal proofs you have already given, that 
you are a friend of mankind ; and under this estab- 
lished idea, place as full confidence in your wisdom 
and integrity for the preservation of those civil and 
religious liberties which have been transmitted to us 
by the providence of God and the glorious Revo- 
lution, as we believe ought to be reposed in man. 
We have received the most grateful satisfaction 
from the humble and entire dependence on the 
great Governor of the universe which you have 
repeatedly expressed, acknowledging him the source 
of every blessing, and particularly of the most excel- 
lent Constitution of these states, which is at present 
the admiration of the world, and may in future 
become its great exemplar for imitation ; and hence 
we enjoy a holy expectation, that you will always 
prove a faithful and impartial patron of genuine 
vital religion, the grand end of our creation and 
present probationary existence. And we promise 
you our fervent prayers to the throne of grace, that 
God Almighty may endue you with all the graces 
and gifts of his Holy Spirit, that he may enable 
you to fill up your important station to his glory, 
the good of his Church, the happiness and prosper- 
ity of the United States, and the welfare of man- 



ITS LOYALTY AST) PATEIOTIC SERYICES. 20T 

kind. Signed in behalf of the Methodist Episcopal 
Church." 

Washington, in reply, said: ^'I return to you 
individually, and through you to your Society col- 
lectively in the United States, my thanks for the 
demonstrations of affection, and the expressions of 
joy offered in their behalf, on my late appointment. 
It shall be my endeavor to manifest the purity of 
my inclinations for promoting the happiness of 
mankind, as well of the sincerity of my desires 
to contribute whatever may be in my power toward 
the civil and religious liberties of the American 
people. In pursuing this line of conduct, I hope, 
by the assistance of Divine Providence, not alto- 
gether to disappoint the confidence which you 
have been pleased to repose in me. It always 
affords me satisfaction when I find a concurrence 
of sentiment and practice between all conscientious 
men, in acknowledgments of homage to the great 
Governor of the Universe, and in professions of sup- 
port to a just civil government. After mentioning 
that I trust the people of every denomination, who 
demean themselves as good citizens, will have occa- 
sion to be convinced that I shall always strive to 
prove a faithful and impartial patron of genuine 
vital religion, I must assure you in particular, that 
I take in the kindest part the promise you make of 
presenting your prayers at the throne of grace for 



208 CENTEKAKY OF AMERICAN METHODISM. 



me, and tliat I likewise implore tlie divine benedic- 
tion on yourselves and your religious community." 

These two first bishops of Metliodism were inti- 
mate with Washington, and were entertained at his 
table at Mount Yernon, where they held patriotic 
consultations with him, especially on the subject of 
slavery, he being, as they have recorded, of their 
own sentiments on that subject. 

On this great national question, which has so 
fortunately reached its solution in our day, Meth- 
odism has always borne a decided testimony, and 
has contributed more, perhaps, than any other 
Christian denomination, to its final settlement. If 
Quakerism has given a less equivocal verdict on 
the evil, Methodism has done incomparably more 
effectual work against it. At the organization of 
the Church it enacted a law against it, and after- 
ward incorporated into its constitutional law (its 
General Rules or terms of membership) a prohibi- 
tion of " the buying and selling of men, women, and 
children, with an intention to enslave them," a law 
which has kept its honorable record down to this 
day. The early Methodist preachers, who, like 
Hatch and Garrettson, inherited, or otherwise came 
into the possession of slaves, emancipated them. 
"With the rapid spread of the Church southward, its 
stringent opinions on the subject became lax; vio- 
lent discussions and parties arose within its com- 



ITS LOYALTY AND PATRIOTIC SERVICES. 209 



munion, and confusion and schism followed ; but its 
primitive standard of opinion at last triumphed, 
and at the General Conference of 1844, rather than 
endure further encroachments from the barbarous evil, 
it suffered the greatest schism in the ecclesiastical his- 
tory of the country, the secession of the Methodist 
Episcopal Church South, by which it lost at a stroke 
nearly half its members and half its territory. 

In the further progress of the antislavery contro- 
versy as a national question, no religious com- 
munion of the country has been more energetic than 
Methodism. It was the first denomination to enter 
practically and prominently into the contest, not- 
withstanding the opposition of many of its strongest 
men; and if, in its southern and schismatic people, 
have been found the strongest abettors of slavery 
and rebellion, northern Methodism has redeemed the 
denominational honor by its uncompromising devo- 
tion to the slave and the Constitution. A Meth- 
odist conference (the l^ew York East Conference) was 
the first ecclesiastical body to pledge its loyal and 
utter co-operation with the goyernment, after the 
attack on Fort Sumter ; and by a happy coincidence 
was the first to telegraph congratulations to the 
government at the downfall of the rebellion, by the 
surrender of Lee." Methodism has contributed, it 

* This Conference happened to be holding sessions at the time of 
each of these events. 

14 



210 CENTEN^AEY OF AMERICAN METHODISM. 

has been estimated, a hundred thousand white and 
seventy-five thousand black troops to the war for 
the Union. The Methodist Episcopal Church has 
thinned its congregations, disbanded many of its 
Sundaj^-school and Bible classes, by these patriotic 
contributions. Its pulpits have resounded through 
the war with enthusiastic pleas for the Constitution. 
Its entire denominational press (the most extensive 
in the land) has, without one exception, been fer- 
vently and continually devoted to the national cause. 
The national flag has waved from its spires and 
draped its pulpits, and its characteristic enthusiasm 
has been kindled to the highest fervor by the national 
struggle. Many of its preachers have followed the 
army as chaplains, others as officers, and others 
as privates. Thousands of Methodist martyrs for 
the Union sleep under the sod of southern battle- 
fields. In fine, Methodism, as the chief religious 
embodiment of the common people, has felt that 
its destiny is identical with that of the country, and 
has thrown its utmost energy into the great strug- 
gle for the national life. The government has recog- 
nized its services, and, at its last Greneral Conference, 
President Lincoln addressed it an emphatic testimo- 
nial, saying : " JSTobly sustained as the Government has 
been by all the Churches, I would utter nothing which 
might in the least appear invidious against any. Yet 
without this it may fairly be said that the Methodist 



ITS LOYALTY AXD PATEIOTIC SERVICES. 211 

Episcopal Churcli, not less devoted than tlie best, is, 
by its greater numbers, the most important of all. 
It is no fault in others that the Methodist Church 
sends more soldiers to the field, more nurses to the 
hospitals, and more prayers to heaven than any. 
God bless the Methodist Church ! bless all the 
Churches ! and blessed be God ! who in this our 
great trial giveth us the Churches." 



SUMMARY VIEW. 



313 



CHAPTEE YII. 

SUMMARY VIEW. 

Such, then, is Methodism, historically viewed; such 
the results which entitle its birth in the New World 
to the grateful commemoration of its people. 

Embury's little congregation of five persons, in 
his own house, has multiplied to thousands of Soci- 
eties, from the northernmost settlements of Canada 
to the Gulf of Mexico, from Nova Scotia to Cali- 
fornia. The first small conference of 1773, with its 
10 preachers and its 1,160 reported members, has 
multiplied to 60 conferences, 6,821 itinerant, 8,205 
local preachers, and 928,320 members in the Meth- 
odist Episcopal Church alone, exclusive of the south- 
ern, the Canadian and minor branches, all the off- 
spring of the Church founded in 1766 and episco- 
pally organized in 1784. 

It has property in churches and parsonages 
amounting to about $27,000,000. 

It has 25 colleges and theological schools, with 
property amounting to $3,055,000, 158 instructors, 
and 5,345 students; and 77 academies, with 556 
instructors and 17,761 students; making a body of 
714 instructors, and an army of 23,106 students, 



214 CENTEITAIIY OF AMEEICAN METHODISM. 



Its ctLurch property, (cliurclies, parsonages, and 
colleges, aside from its 77 academies and Book Con- 
cern,) amounts to $30,055,000. 

Its Book Concern has a capital of $837,000 ; 500 
publishing agents, editors, clerks, and operatives; 
with some thirty cylinder power presses in constant 
operation, about 2,000 different books on its cata- 
logue, besides tracts, etc. ; 14 periodicals, with an 
aggregate circulation of more than 1,000,000 cop- 
ies per month. ^ 

Its Sunday-School Union comprises 13,400 schools ; 
more than 150,000 instructors; nearly 918,000 pu- 
pils; and more than 2,500,000 library books. It 
issues nearly 2,500 publications, besides a monthly 
circulation of nearly 300,000 numbers of its peri- 
odicals. 

Its Missionary Society has 1,059 circuits and sta- 
tions; 1,128 paid laborers, and 105,675 communi- 
cants. 

The Methodist Episcopal Church South has pub- 
lished no statistics since the rebellion broke out ; it 
has doubtless suffered much by the war, but it 
reported, the last year before the rebellion, nearly 
700,000 Church members, nearly 2,600 itinerant and 
5,000 local members. It had 12 periodical publica- 
tions, 12 colleges, and 77 academies, with 8,000 stu- 

* There are five independent weekly papers in the Church besides 
the above number of official " periodicals. 



SUMMARY VIEW. 



215 



dents. Its i^Iissionary Society sustained, at home 
and abroad, about 360 missionaries and 8 manual 
labor schools, with nearly 500 pupils. 

According to these figures the two great Episcopal 
divisions of the denomination have had, at their 
latest reports, 1,628,320 members; 9,421 traveling, 
and 13,205 local preachers; with 191 colleges and 
academies, and 31,106 students.^ 

The Canada Wesleyan Church was not only 
founded by, but for many years belonged to, the 
Methodist Episcopal Church ; it now reports more 
than 56,000 members, 500 itinerant preachers, and 
750 Sunday-schools with about 45,000 pupils; a 
university, a female college, and a Book Concern 
with its weekly periodical. 

Another branch of Canadian Methodism, the 
" Methodist Episcopal Church in Canada," equally 
the child of the Methodist Episcopal Church in the 
United States, reports 3 Annual Conferences, 2 
bishops, 216 traveling and 224 local preachers, and 
20,000 members ; a seminary and female college,, and 
a weekly newspaper. 

The Canadian Wesleyan Methodist 'New Connec- 

* Some of these figures differ slightly from enumerations given 
elsewhere in this volume ; the latter were made from earlier data, and 
went to press before the former reached me ; they do not, however, 
materially affect the aggregates. Methodism, in common with other 
Churches, has suffered by the late period of poHtical and military 
agitation. 



216 CENTER AEY OF AMERICAN METHODISM. 



tion ChurcL. reports 90 traveling and 147 local 
preaciliers, and 8,450 commnnicants. It sustains a 
weekly paper and a theological school. 

The other Methodist bodies, in the United States, 
are the Methodist Protestant Chnrch, the American 
Wesleyan Methodists, the African Methodist Episco- 
pal Church, and some three or four smaller sects; 
their aggregate membership amounts to about 
260,000 ; their preachers to 3,423.^ 

Adding the traveling preachers to the membership, 
there are now in the United States about 1,901,164 
Methodist communicants. Adding three non-com- 
municant members of its congregations for each com- 
municant, it has under its influence 7,604,656 souls — 
between one fifth and one fourth of the whole 
national population. 

Aggregately there are now in the United States 
and Canada,f as the results of the Methodism of 
1766, 1,972^770 Church members,' 13,650 traveling 
preachers, 15,000 local preachers, nearly 200 col- 
leges and academies, and more than 30 periodical 
publications; 1,986,420 communicants, including 
preachers, and nearly 8,000,000 people. 

The influence of this vast ecclesiastical force on 

* As reported in 1860, in Schem's Ecclesiastical Tear Book; our 
best authority in American ecclesiastical statistics. 

f The other North American British Provinces are not included, as 
their Methodism did not originate with the denomination in the United 
States, The Primitive Methodists are also omitted. 



SUMMARY VIEW. 



2ir 



the moral, intellectnal, and social progress of the 
IsTew World, can neither be doubted nor measured. 
It is generally conceded that it has been the most 
energetic religious element in the social development 
cf the continent. "With its devoted and enterprising 
people dispersed through the whole population, its 
thousands of laborious itinerant preachers, and tens 
of thousands of local preachers and exhorters, its 
unequaled publishing agencies and powerful period- 
icals, from the Quarterly Review to the child's 
paper, its hundreds of colleges and academies, its 
hundreds of thousands of Sunday-school instructors, 
its devotion to the lower and most needy classes, its 
animated modes of worship and religious labor, it 
cannot be questioned that it has been a mighty, if 
not the mightiest agent in the maintenance and 
spread of Protestant Christianity over these lands. 
It stands now on the threshold of its second century 
mightier than ever, in all the elements and resources 
requisite for a still greater history. It has modified 
somewhat its primitive methods, but only for its 
increased efficiency. 

The question, What is the actual position, moral 
as well as statistical, of the Methodist Episcopal 
Church in particular? cannot be more authorita- 
tively answered than in the address of its latest 
delegate to the British Conference, Bishop Janes. 

In this epoch of her history," he says, " the ques- 



218 CENTENAEY OF AMERICAlSr METHODISM. 



tion naturally arises, ^What has been the career 
of American Methodism, what its attainments of 
power and usefulness in the land and in the world?' 
As a partial answer to this inquiry, we refer you 
to our latest tables of statistics:^ Communicants, 
928,320 ; itinerant ministers, 6,821 ; local ministers. 
8,205; churches, 10,015; parsonages, 2,948; estima- 
ted value of churches and parsonages, $26,883,076; 
Sunday-schools, 13,153 ; officers and teachers, 
148,475 ; scholars, 859,700. We have 161 mission- 
aries in foreign lands, and 7,022 church members. 
Among the foreign populations of our own country, 
we have laboring 286 missionaries; and in the 
churches under their care, 26,138 communicants. 
In our domestic missionary department we have 
about 800 missionaries ; their statistics are given in 
the general aggregate I have stated. Some of these 
missionaries are supported wholly by the missionary 
fund, but most of them only in part. Eeceipts, 
$558,993 ; the appropriations for the current year 
are $625,000. With regard to our education, we 
have 23 universities or colleges, in which there are 
5,345 students, with property and endowment funds 
amounting to more than $2,800,000. We have 
two theological schools, in which there are 116 

* The statistics, given elsewhere in this volume, are the latest I have 
been able to obtain ; a difference of time will account for any differ- 
ence of figures between the bishop's statements and mj own. 



SUMMARY VIEW. 



219 



students, with property yalued at §150,000.^ We 
have 77 academic institutions, with abont 18,000 
students, the number of males and females being 
about equal. Our use of the press has been contin- 
ually increasing. We have now nine weekly and 
several semi-monthly, monthly, and quarterly peri- 
odicals, which are official, and several unofficial 
periodicals which are Methodistic in their character. 
We still follow the examj)le of Mr. Wesley in zeal- 
ously circulating Christian books. We have a very 
large number of Sunday-school publications, and a 
religious literature adapted to the wants of the 
whole Church. These statistics only answer the 
question partially. There have been several large 
secessions from the Church, which have continued 
to preach our doctrines and observe most of our 
usages. I have not been permitted to examine the 
' Book of Life ' to ascertain the great number who 
shared her militant fellowship on earth, but now 
enjoy the divine fruition of the Church triumphant 
in heaven. Could I obtain the number of those, liv- 
ing and dead, who have been enrolled in the annals 
of American Methodism, even that would not give 
the full measure of its usefulness. Its influence, 
subtle as the fi^agrance of the flower, could not be 
registered by man. ' As the dew of Hermon, and 
the dew that descended upon the mountain when 
* This does not include the legacy of the late Mrs. Garrett. 



220 CENTENARY OF AMERICAN METHODISM. 



the Lord commanded the blessing,' the influence of 
American Methodism has descended npon the whole 
land, permeating more or less all denominations of 
Christians, and germinating and maturing many 
rich fruits, which have been garnered in other 
Churches and recorded in other registers. It is, 
perhaps, a most important question for us to answer 
whether the American Methodism of 1865 is the 
Methodism introduced in 1766. ]S"otwithstanding 
all that croakers and grumblers have said or can 
say on this subject, a careful examination will show 
that if it does not strictly retain the resemblance of 
the impression to the signet, it does bear the iden- 
tity of manhood to childhood, of the harvest to the 
seed. Changes have been made in the 'Rules and 
Eegulations' from time to time, by legitimate 
authority, as the exigencies of the Church have 
required. It is exceedingly interesting to see how 
these changes have been made in the direction of 
development, of enlargement, and of progress. 

" The Methodist Episcopal Church was organized 
by authority of Mr. Wesley, in 1784, by Dr. Coke. 
The liturgy which Mr. Wesley provided for the 
Church contained the forms of making and ordain- 
ing superintendents or bishops, and elders or pres- 
byters, and deacons. The discipline he gave the 
Church provided for employment of unordained 
ministers and local preachers to assist the pastors 



SUMMARY VIEW. 



221 



in their pulpit labors, and class-leaders to aid tlieni 
in their pastoral work. These are the orders and 
duties of our ministers and pastors at this present 
time. The number of ministers soon became so 
large, and their distance from each other so great, 
that it was found impossible for them to meet in one 
conference. Two conferences were then formed. 
As these became inconveniently large, they were 
again divided ; and this process has been continued, 
until now, including our conferences in Africa and 
Germany, and India, we have sixty Annual Confer- 
ences. For the same reason, it was found necessary 
to provide for a delegated General Conference, to 
meet quadrennially, with authority, under certain 
specified restrictions, 'to make rules and regula- 
tions' for the Church, to review the administration 
of the Annual Conference, and to elect and ordain 
bishops whenever the state of the work required it. 
"We have also a Quarterly Conference, composed of 
the preachers of the circuit, the local preachers, 
stewards, trustees, class-leaders, exhorters, and Sun- 
day-school superintendents. This conference has a 
general but prescribed supervision of all the inter- 
ests of the circuit. The few simple rules which Mr. 
"Wesley provided for removing improper persons 
from society and improper ministers from the con- 
ference have been elaborated into a complete system 
of ecclesiastical jm-isprudence. We maintain, unim- 



222 ceintenary of American Methodism. 



paired, the itinerancy of our ministry. In the older 
and more densely populated portions of the oonntry, 
the work is divided into stations or separate pas- 
toral charges. In the newer and more sparsely 
peopled sections we retain the circuit form. The 
late General Conference extended the term of min- 
isterial service so as to allow a minister to remain 
three years in the same charge. The Episcopacy 
constitutes an 'Itinerant General Superintendency.' 
There is no feature of our polity of which both the 
ministers and laity of the Church are more jealous. 
The attachment to it is universal. Attendance 
upon class-meeting has not been uniformly enforced 
as a condition of Church membership. The duty 
of attendance upon this social means of grace has 
been strongly urged upon all our members. Many 
of the pastors have laid aside for a breach of our 
rules such members as were delinquents in this 
respect. Th.e institution is very highly appreciated 
by the spiritual and devout portion of the Church. 
It is invaluable in training our converts. Our 
leaders, taken as a body, make a sub-pastorate, a 
lay agency which is unequaled. The local preachers 
and class-leaders of the Methodist Episcopal Church 
constitute one of the grand forces of American 
Methodism. 

"Does the Methodist Episcopal Church retain its 
simplicity and spirituality ? Is it being built up 



SUMMARY VIEW. 



223 



with living stones ? Is it a spiritual house, a holy 
priesthood, offering up spiritual sacrifices acceptable 
to God through Jesus Christ. We cannot search 
the hearts or discern the spirits of our brethren. 
We can only judge from outward signs, and even 
thus with great carefulness. Most of our members 
bring forth the fruits of good living. They testify 
in class-meetings and love-feasts, and on other suit- 
able occasions, to their enjoyment of God's pardon- 
ing mercy and adopting love, many of them of his 
sanctifying power. Our people almost uniformly 
prefer spiritual scriptural preaching. We are 
favored with frequent and extensive revivals ; and 
we can and do feel and say, ' the best of all is, God 
is with us.' As to the future, our success is likely 
to be greater than ever." 



PART III. 



ITS CAPABILITIES AND EESPONSIBILITIES 
FOE THE FUTUEE. 

The capabilities of American Methodism, for con- 
tinued and increased usefulness, have already been 
sbown in the historical view of its practical methods, 
its theological teachings, and its actual results. It 
stands strong to-day in its essential doctrines and 
methods ; and it has the additional ability and 
responsibility of greater financial resources than it 
has ever had before. Its people, originally the 
poorest of the land, have become, under its benef- 
icent training, perhaps the wealthiest, l^ot only 
has it more diffused wealth than any sister denomina- 
tion, but its cases of individual opulence have, within 
the last quarter of a century, greatly multiplied. 
As the leading Church of the country, it bears, before 
God and man, the chief responsibility of the moral 
welfare of the nation. The letter consecration of its 
wealth to the joublio good is therefore one of the prin- 
cipal responsihilities of its future. 

We have seen how providentially it met the moral 

exigencies which grew out of the early rapid growth 

15 



226 CENTE^^ARY OF AMERICAN" METHODISM. 

of the American population ; exigencies that could 
not otherwise have been met. Bnt a greater de- 
mand, if possible, is to be made npon it in the 
future. This wonderful growth of population is 
to advance at a rate which threatens to outstrip 
the provisions for its intellectual and religious 
training. In less than forty years from the present 
date more than one hundred millions of human 
souls will be dependent upon these provisions for 
their intellectual and moral nutriment. They bear 
now no adequate relation to the real necessities 
of the land. If, after more than two centuries of 
religious and educational efforts, under the most 
auspicious circumstances of the country, we have 
but partially provided for thirty-five millions, how 
shall we, in forty years, meet the immensely 
enlarged moral wants of nearly three times that 
number? The question is a very grave one. Our 
rapid growth, so much the boast of the nation, is 
not without imminent peril ; it may be too rapid to 
be healthful ; it is to be the severest test of both 
our religion and our liberties, for one is the essen- 
tial condition of the other. And yet it cannot, by 
any probable contingencies, be restrained. It has a 
momentum which will bear down and overleap all 
the ordinary obstructions of population. We can- 
not want work, we cannot want bread ; and where 
these exist, population must advance as inevitably 



RESPONSIBILITIES FOR THE FUTURE. 



227 



as the waters under tlie laws of the tide. Every 
growth of this population provides indeed some- 
what, morally as well as materially, for the next 
growth ; but the law of proportion must fail in this 
respect, under our rapid advance and the peculiar 
elements of our growth, unless the religious bodies 
of the land, to which its education is so largely 
confided, make special provisions for it. 

"When we remind ourselves that so much of this 
popular increase is from abroad, that Europe has 
been in an " exodus " toward our shores, that its 
ignorance and vice — wave overtopping wave — ^roU 
in upon the land, the danger assumes a startling 
aspect. In about thirty-six years from this day our 
population will equal the present aggregate popu- 
lation of England, France, Switzerland, Spain, Por- 
tugal, Sweden, and Denmark. A step further in the 
calculation presents a prospect still more surprising 
and impressive: in about sixty-six years from to- 
day this mighty mass of commingled peoples will 
have swollen to the stupendous aggregate of two 
hundred and forty-six millions — equaling the present 
population of all Europe. According to the statis- 
tics of life, there are hundreds of thousands of our 
present population who will witness this truly grand 
result. What have the friends of education and 
religion to do within that time! If our present 
intellectual and moral provisions for the people are 



228 CENTENARY OF AMERICAN METHODISM. 

far .short of tlie wants of our present thirty-five 
millions, how in sixty-six years shall we provide 
for more than two hundred and eleven additional 
millions, and these millions, to a great extent, com- 
posed of semi-barbarous foreigners and their mis- 
trained children? 

We may well ponder these facts, and feel that 
on us, the citizens of the republic, at this the 
middle of the nineteenth century, devolves a moral 
exigency such as, perhaps, no other land ever saw ; 
an exigency as full of sublimity as of urgency — 
as grand in its opportunity as in its peril. This 
immense prospective population — certain, though 
prospective — is to be thrown out, by the almighty 
hand of Providence, upon one of the grandest 
arenas of the world. Here, on this large continent, 
bounded in its distant independence by the Atlantic, 
the Pacific, the great tropic gulf, and the Arctic; 
here, away from the traditional governments and 
faiths and other antiquated checks of the old world, 
it is to play its great drama of destiny — a destiny 
which, as we have shown, must, numerically at 
least, be in less than seventy years as potential as 
all present Europe, and how much more potential 
in all moral, political, and commercial respects ? 
What an idea would it be, that of all Europe consol- 
idated into one mighty, untrammeled common- 
wealth, in the highest liberty, religious enlighten- 



RESPONSIBILITIES FOR THE FUTURE. 229 



nent, and industrial development — and tliis mighty 
revolution to be completed in less than seventy 
years ft*om to-day? Who would credit the concep- 
tion? Tet our republic will, in that time, more 
than realize the stupendous idea, if its political and 
moral integrity be not sacrificed. 

Look at its field. According to an official report, 
the total area of the United States and territories 
in 1853 was 2,983,153 square miles. This estimate 
is fonnd to be even short of the truth : various 
official reports from the Land Office, and the aggre- 
gate of the census, show 3,220,572 square miles. It 
is estimated from these facts that the territorial ex- 
tent of the republic is nearly ten times as large as 
that of Great Britain and France united, three times 
as large as the whole of Britain, France, Austria, 
Prussia, Spain, Portugal, Belgium, Holland, and 
Denmark ; one and a half times as large as the 
Pussian empire in Europe ; only a sixth less than 
the area covered by the nearly sixty empires, 
states, or republics of Europe; of larger extent 
than the Poman empire, or that of Alexander, 
neither of which exceeded three millions of square 
miles. "What a theater is this for the achievements 
of civilization and religion ! Surely there should 
be " giants in these days " to enact worthily the en- 
terprises of such a field. And if circumstances make 
men, are we not to hope that the consciousness 



230 CENTENABy OF AMERICAN METHODISM. 

of this unparalleled destiny will enlarge and ennoble 
tlie intellect, the philanthropy, and moral energy of 
the conn try to a scale of corresponding magnificence — 
will bring fortli sublime examples of public devotion, 
of talent, of moral heroism, and of munificence ? Let 
it be repeated that Methodism, by its numerical 
strength and wealth, has a larger responsibility for 
this great field than any other Church of the land, 

American Methodism, as we have seen, has been 
remarkable for the progress of its Educational pro- 
visions ; and this fact may be considered one of its 
providential adaptations to its great mission in the 
ISTew World. "Wisely has its General Conference 
" Centenary Committee " proposed to commemo- 
rate its centenary jubilee, not so much by a 
monumental edifice as by a monumental institu- 
tion — a permanent fund for education. An im- 
pressive argument for education is found in the 
large proportion of our juvenile population. Where 
there is plenty of food, as there must indefinitely 
be in this country, there will always be plenty 
of children. It is a beneficent, a beautiful law. 
Kearly half our present white population are yet 
in what may be called the fiower of youth. We 
almost literally present an example of national ado- 
lescence — the freshness, the ardor, the vigor, and 
the susceptibility of childhood and young manhood. 



BESPONSIBILITIES FOE THE FUTURE. 231 



Our white population in 1860 was 26^957^4:71 ; 
tlie portion wMcli was under twenty years of age, 
12fil4:,6S7. Tlie destiny of the country is then in 
the hands of its educators. The population of to-day 
is to surpass all the millions of Europe in less 
than seventy years ; and its educators hold within 
their power nearly one half of the population of 
to-day, nearly one half the present elements of the 
grand geometrical progression. Let them work out, 
then, with an untiring hand and a sublime conscious- 
ness, this mighty arithmetic of destiny ! It may be 
soberly said that never before was there a battle- 
field for humanity like this ; never were the elements 
of good and evil set forth against each other in a 
grander arena ; never was humanity thrown out 
upon conditions more experimental, more free from 
the trammels of old institutions, of old traditions, 
of old fallacies. It must be mighty here — that is 
inevitable ; but it will be mighty in the strength 
of its wickedness, like the antediluvian giants who 
brought the world to dissolution, or mighty in 
the virtues which shall subdue the world to the 
reign of religion, intelligence, and liberty. They 
who have the means of educating the young can 
lay a mightier hand upon this sublime future than 
any other heroes in the field. The legislators of 
the land, its high places of power, and of profes- 
sional life, may do much for it ; but its humble places 



232 CENTEKARY OF AMERICAI^ METHODISM. 



of education, including its Sunday-schools, are its true 
fortresses — " the cheap defense of the nation." 

It is to be hoped, therefore, that Methodism, with 
its chief responsibility for the moral and intellectual 
progress of the country, will prosecute more yigor- 
ously than ever its educational work, and that it 
will especially crown its present jubilee by endow 
ing, in accordance with the plan of its Centenary 
Committee, a monumental fund for education, which 
shall worthily commemorate the great occasion, and 
from which not only its present numerous colleges 
shall receive additional strength, but new ones shall 
spring up as the population of the country advances. 

It should especially enlarge its means of minis- 
terial education. It has done a great work in the 
mere conquest (now universal) of the popular preju- 
dice against theological schools. It has provided, 
as we have seen, two such institutions, one in the 
north-east , and one in the north-west ; it needs at 
least three more immediately: one in the middle 
East, one in the middle West, and one on the Pacific 
coast. It should have them, at latest, within five 
years, and its proposed Centenary fund will probably 
enable it to provide them even earlier.*^ Ministerial 

* Daniel Drew, Esq., has already pledged $250,000 for a theologi- 
cal school near New York City, the first centenary donation to the 
Church, and one worthy of the occasion. 



EESPOKSIBILITIES FOR THE FUTURE. 233 



education is evidently one of its greatest necessities 
for the future ; it is not only necessary for its prog- 
ress, but for the safety of the great conquests it has 
already won. Its people are rapidly advancing in 
intelligence ; their demand for improved pulpit in- 
struction cannot be waived ; it must be met, or 
their families be lost from the denomination. The 
Church has become conscious of this necessity, and 
will not, it is to be hoped, delay to provide abund- 
antly for it. 

Methodism should feel itself responsible to min- 
ister hereafter^ more than heretofore^ to the publio 
culture^ hy the improvement of its church archi- 
tecture. During most of its history, it has had to 
extemporize its temples. Within the last twenty- 
five years it has been providentially enabled to 
renew a large proportion of them, to give them 
better locations, better internal accommodations, 
and better architectural style ; so that in some of 
the principal cities, Boston, ]N"ew York, Newark, 
Philadelphia, "Wilmington, Chicago, Cincinnati, its 
places of worship are rapidly taking rank with 
those of older denominations. It has need, indeed, 
of caution against excess in this respect, but it has 
more need of liberal taste than of caution, for its 
error has been in the opposite direction, if not in 
the opposite extreme. It should bear in mind that 



234: CENTENARY OF AMERICAN METHODISM. 



its permanent hold upon its congregations, especially 
in the larger communities, will depend much upon 
the convenience and even the elegance (the just 
elegance) of its churches; that there can be no 
moral objection to good taste and genuine art; 
and that the monuments of religion deserve such 
tributes above all other structures. The taste of the 
Church has advanced much in this respect, more, 
perhaps, than its liberality, but it needs further 
training in both. It needs to be reminded that true 
taste and true art are not adventitious things, much 
less the products of pride or luxury ; that they are 
founded in original laws, that is to say, divine laws 
of human nature, and therefore meet a natural want 
of man; that even the strictest "utilitarianism" 
cannot rationally condemn them, for beauty is often 
the highest utility, ministering, in art, to our higher 
wants in a manner incomparably more utilitarian, 
than the service of the lower or " practical arts " to 
our lower nature. God has written its vindication 
over all his works, for whatever may be their mechan- 
ical processes and directly utilitarian designs, he has 
decorated them everywhere with beauty or sublim- 
ity, and their very first appeal is to our minds rather 
than to our physical necessities. The heavens by 
day and by night, the mountains and valleys, the 
streams and seas, and most living things, are made 
by him pictures for the soul before they can be made 



RESPONSIBILITIES FOR THE FUTURE. 235 

by US tributary to our material wants. He permits 
not tbe vegetable world to yield us bread, till it has 
first yielded beauty through the eye, to the mind. 
The blossom precedes the fruit. True art should 
be recognized as one of the noblest handmaids of 
religion ; elevating impressions and associations, 
through the senses in our temples, may ennoble 
even divine worship ; and imposing monuments of 
taste, consecrated to piety, are among the highest 
means of national cultm^e, and the highest proofs of 
advanced civilization. It is a sacred peculiarity of 
architectural art that, unlike painting and sculpture, 
it will not lend itself to vice ; its severe and stately 
beauty disdains effeminate or voluptuous tastes. It 
is the most sublime, the most religious, of the works 
of man. 

On really utilitarian grounds, then, may we plead 
for religious art. Yet we may plead for it also on 
really economical grounds. The most expensive 
temple is usually the most economical. The Church 
that builds its edifice in the most eligible locality 
and in the most attractive style, almost invariably 
finds its expense the best reimbursed, by its command 
of the people, their attendance, their intelligence, 
and their money. A well located, substantial, and 
commanding temple aids much in giving security to 
a Church, and is cheap in this respect. The stability 
of the religions of the old Avorld, their power over 



236 CEOTEIlTAEY OF AMERICAN METHODISM. 



local populations, are owing largely to their grand 
edifices. Methodism should not despise this power. 
It must still throw up hastily, especially in its frontier 
fields, temporary " meeting-houses," shanties, or log- 
cabins ; it should multiply greatly its cheap suburban 
temples; but it should make all prudent haste to 
supersede these by better structures. Consulting 
always, and primarily, practical convenience in its 
buildings, it should also endeavor liberally to ennoble 
the house of God by every aid of genuine taste and 
art. It will not be able to justify itself against the 
claims of public opinion and public taste upon it if, 
with its great prosperity, it should fail to have within 
the next twenty-five years the most approved and 
most commodious churches of the nation. 

It should he one of its most earnest aims to con- 
solidate its forces hy the union of its various Amer- 
ican hranches. There would seem to be but tempo- 
rary, if indeed any reason, for the continued separa- 
tion of its two chief bodies, north and south. They 
divided on the question of slavery; that question is 
now practically obsolete ; they are identical in their 
theological and practical systems and in their ecclesi- 
astical aims ; their reunion would contribute much to 
the social and political reconciliation of the IsTorth 
and South ; it is a duty, therefore, that they both 
owe to their common country, and to our common 



EESPONSIBILITIES FOR THE FUTURE. 227 

Christianity. On what terms sncli a reconciliation 
should be fonnded, need not here be discussed ; it is 
sufficient to affirm the obvious fact that it should be 
effected, and whatever is obviously right is always, 
sooner or later, practicable. The other branches of 
American Methodism have arisen mostly by seces- 
sions, founded on questions of church government, 
especially on the demand for lay representation. The 
position of the supreme assembly of the Church on 
this subject, its readiness at the will of the Church 
to make the change, should make it possible for 
such sister bodies to return to the common household. 

Such a consolidation of the various communions 
which bear the name of Methodists and have 
identical doctrines and discipline, would mightily 
strengthen, numerically and morally, the common 
cause. Perhaps a still greater advantage would be 
the diminution of the prevalent sectarianism of the 
country, and the consequent abatement of its rancor, 
its wastefulness, and its bad moral effect on the 
public mind. Whatever may be the advantage of a 
variety of religious denominations, for the accommo- 
dation of a variety of religious opinions or scruples, 
(an advantage enormously exaggerated in this coun- 
try,) it surely cannot justify those distinctions, with- 
out an essential difference, which the various sects of 
Methodism now present. If American Christianity 
must needs have divisions, it certainly need not have 



238 CENTEJSTABY OF AMERICAN METHODISM. 



these snbdivisions. Wesley gloried, as we have seen, 
in the liberality, the catholicity of Methodism ; it is 
a boast which his disciples should be eager to main- 
tain throughout the world and to the end of time. 
"What a crowning glory would it be to its cente- 
nary jubilee, if all its now practically unnecessary 
branches could be blended into one common cause 
before the joyous year (never to be enjoyed on earth 
by any of us again) has passed away! If this be 
impossible, can we not, at least, in the proceedings 
of this memorable year, lay with certainty the 
foundations of so grand a consummation ? 

Methodism should earnestly seeic to solve that now 
most important of its practical problems^ how to se- 
cure its children within its own pale. Its Sunday- 
schools help it much in this respect, but not suffi- 
ciently. Thousands of its youth have been annually 
converted within these schools: nearly 19,000 the 
last year, (1864,) nearly 40,000 within the last two 
years; more than 285,000 within the last eighteen 
years. In several of these years the reported conver- 
sions in the schools equaled half the annual additions 
to the Church membership; in several the former 
more than equaled the whole of the latter. In the 
entire period the Sunday-school conversions have sur- 
passed the entire gains of the Church membership by 
nearly 5,000. During three years of the war the 



EESPONSIBILITIES FOR THE FUTURE. 239 



membership decreased eT^OOO, but during these same 
three years the reported conversions in the schools 
amounted to SO^SOO. While these facts speak emphat- 
ically for the religious power of the school, they show 
alarmingly the inefficient guardianship of the Church 
over its children. They prove that most of its con- 
verted youth either fail to enter or are lost from its 
communion. The startling exhibit of these statistics 
should be kept under the eye of the Church,^ and 
be anxiously pondered till a remedy be found for the 
extraordinary evil. The last General Conference 
ordained that the " baptized children of the Church " 
shall be " organized into classes," with suitable lead- 
ers, (male or female,) and in due time be " enrolled 
on the list of probationers " and " admitted into full 
membership." This is an important advance in the 
right direction ; but it must fail without the diligent 
pastoral attention of the ministry. The intimate 
co-operation of the pastor with his Sunday-school 
teachers ; his presence in the school, especially in 





Total 


Increase of 




Total 


Increase of 


* Year. 


conversions. 


Ch. Membership. 


Year. 


conversions. 


Ch. Membership 


1847 


4,118 


Dec. 


1857 


14,669 


20,192 


1848 


8,240 


7,508 


1858 


32,315 


136,036 


1849 


9,014 


23,249 


1859 


20,580 


17,790 


1850 


11,398 


27,367 


18^0 


19,517 


20,102 


1851 


14,557 


32,122 


1861 


17,498 


dec. 1,924 


1852 


13,243 


6,896 


1862 


12,828 


dec. 45,617 


1853 


16,916 


3,937 


1863 


20,233 


dec. 19,512 


1854 


17,494 


30,732 


1864 


18,892 


4,926 


1855 


17,443 


16,073 








1856 


16,775 


896 




285,730 


280,773 



240 CEKTENAEY OF AMEBICAN METHODISM. 

times of religions interest; his habitual personal 
care of converted scholars until they shall be fully 
incorporated and confirmed in the Church, and his 
continual endeavors to interest them in their relig- 
ious duties, are indispensable means of their safety. 
He should behold in the Sunday-school the Church 
of the future. There more than anywhere else 
should we exert our utmost strength, for thence chief- 
ly are we to reinforce our hosts for all coming battles 
and victories. The great number of reported con- 
versions in our schools, probably exceeding that of 
any other, if not indeed of all other American 
Churches combined, should thrill the denomination 
with interest, should convince it that here it has a 
field of immeasurable resources, and that I have not 
wrongly called the question of the Church relation of 
its children its greatest practical problem. 

Finally^ and above all things^ Methodism should 
he reminded of its responsibility to maintain vital^ 
ajpostolic piety in the land^ and to spread it over the 
world. This, as we have seen, was its original 
mission ; this its historical stand-point ; from this 
has sprung all its surprising achievements; if this 
ceases the light will go out in all its sanctuaries. 
Its spiritual life has, let it be repeated, preserved its 
doctrinal integrity and its practical vigor through 
these hundred years. It has never had, at least in 



EESPOIS^SIBILITIES FOR THE FUTUEE. 241 



America, a serious outbreak of theological heresy. 
Seldom has it had even an individual judicial case 
of heterodoxy. Such causes of faction and division 
have been almost unknown to it. Its piety has 
kept it orthodox, notwithstanding the extraordinary 
liberality of its terms of membership. Doubtless its 
peculiar methods have been the proximate cause of 
its great success, but what would these methods have 
been without the spiritual energy which has worked 
them ? That energy has been divine, but the energy 
of the Divine Spirit itself works by the truth ; the 
doctrines of Methodism have therefore been its vital 
element. Repentance, faith, personal regeneration, 
the witness of the Spirit, sanctiflcation, these have 
been the living ideas of Methodist teaching through- 
out the world. It retains these vital truths to-day 
unimpaired ; let it continue to guard them sacredly, 
as the very fire on its altars. Let it incessantly 
expound and enforce them in all its sanctuaries, and 
these sanctuaries shall continue to be thronged with 
inquiring, awakened, and living souls. 

Reviewing thus with grateful joy the blessings of 
God to us and our families through his Church, 
and reminding ourselves, with devout self-admoni- 
tion, of our responsibility for the future, it is befitting 
that we should erect, not in stone, but in more 
enduring substance, a monument, the light on whose 

summit shall shine with ever increasing glory dur- 

16 



242 CENTEISTARY OF AMERICAN METHODISM. 



ing the coming hundred years, and shall be witnessed 
by the eyes of our posterity, when on the anniversary 
morning of October, 1966, they shall throng in re- 
doubled hosts to their temples, and respond back over 
our graves, to this anniversary epoch, and send for- 
ward to the next the anthems of our jubilee. God 
grant that the hymns of that morning may resound 
not only over this, but over both American conti- 
nents, from Labrador to Terra del Fuego, and that the 
missions of Methodism may respond to them from 
all the ends of the earth ! Our chief memorial of the 
epoch, as has been stated, is not to be a building but 
an institution — a Fund for Education;"^ the interest 
of which alone is to be expended, the principal to be 
handed down as our salutation to the Methodists who 
shall assemble on that far-off morning. A more 
practicable or more sublime design is hardly possible 
to the denomination. Its other leading interests, 
like missions, Sunday-schools, etc., have the habitual 
sympathy and support of its people, but education 
can hardly expect such support, and yet can it be 
pronounced a less important, though it may be a less 
direct interest of the Church ? "Were its centenary 
contributions to be given to these more immediate 
interests, they would soon be absorbed or expended, 

* The Centenary plan, as appended to this volume, provides for spe- 
cial contributions for other objects, including a Centenary Missionary 
building; but these are comparatively minor designs. 



BESPONSIBILITIES FOR THE FUTURE. 243 



profitably indeed^ but in sucL. manner as to lose their 
monumental character. The Church can confide 
these interests to its current sympathy and help, but 
education needs permanent endowment, and a great 
educational fund, like that proposed, is of all Church 
interests the best fitted to be monumental. It can 
continually assist our existing seminaries and erect 
new ones, and yet its undiminished principal be trans- 
mitted as our benediction to the future. Let us then 
establish it on a scale worthy not only of the last, but 
of the next hundred years of our history. 

"With such a history, such capabilities, and such 
responsibilities and aims, we enter upon the hund- 
redth year of our great mission. The eye of Chris- 
tendom will be specially upon us this year. The 
eye of God will be specially upon us. All the 
doings of the year should be done as in the sight of 
him and of his whole catholic Church. At the 
close of the memorable year, both he and his general 
Church will judge us according to our works. "We 
shall then also be compelled to judge ourselves. The 
measure of our gratitude for such great prosperity, of 
our sense of such great responsibility, and of our 
Christian zeal for the improvement of such a sublime 
opportunity, will be apparent to ourselves and to all 
the world. Surely we shall not, we cannot, fail to rise 
to the high occasion. We will consecrate it with 
hymns of acclamation, with prayer, with the renewal 



244 CEOTENARY OF AMERICAN METHODISM. 

of our religious vows, and unequaled offerings of 
treasure. The first donation for the occasion has 
already been tendered, and has never been equaled 
by any personal act of liberality in the history of 
Methodism. If it cannot be equaled by other donors, 
yet should it be a standard by which we should all 
proportionately measure our liberality. Should a 
dollar be laid on the altar of the Church this year 
by each of its recorded members, the sum will be 
nearly a million. There is scarcely one of them, 
young or old, who cannot give this pittance. It 
should be the resolution of the Church that every 
member shall thus have a share in its offerings; 
every Society in the connection should see that it be 
obtained, and should provide it for any individual 
case of extreme poverty, if any such there be, where 
it cannot be afforded. Besides this amount of nearly 
a million, we can expect thousands of gifts from five 
dollars to five, ten, or twenty thousand each, and 
probably some of still greater amount. Thus while 
in acts of worship around our altars we celebrate the 
centenary festival, let us heap upon those altars the 
palpable proofs of the sincerity of our gratitude, and 
by the close of the joyous year, present to the Chris- 
tian world an example of beneficence which shall 
never be forgotten. 



CONNECTIONAL ARRANGEMENTS 

FOE THE CELEBEATION OF THE 

CENTENARY OF AMERICAN METHODISM, 
1866, 

AS AUTHOEIZED BY THE GENEEAL COKFEEENCE, AKD 
THE COMMITTEES APPOINTED BY ITS OEDEE. 



BY JOHN M'CLINTOCK, D.D. 



1^ 



CONNECTIONAL PLAN 



FOE THE OELEBEATION OF THE 

OENTEMRY OF AMERICAN METHOWSl. 

ORDER OF THE GENERAL CONFERE^TCE. 

The General Conference of the Methodist Episcopal 
Church, at its session in Philadelphia, 1864:, adopted 
the following preamble and resolutions : 

Whereas^ Methodism in tlie United States of America will 
complete tlie first century of its history in 1866 ; 

And whereas^ under the special blessing of God, it has risen 
in power and extended in usefulness to a degree hardly paral- 
leled in the history of the Church ; 

And especially in view of the many thousands that have been 
saved through its instrumentality, the influence it has exerted 
upon the theology of its times and the evangelization of the 
world, we deem it right to observe the closing period of this 
fii'st centenary with special solemnities and pious offerings, 
which shall present before God some humble expression of our 
devout gratitude, and lead to a renewed consecration of our- 
selves, our services and means 'to the glory of our bivine Mas- 
ter ; therefore be it 

Besolxed^ By the delegates of the Annual Conferences of the 
Methodist Episcopal Church in General Conference assembled, 
as follows : 

1. The centenary of Methodism in America shall be cele- 



248 CENTEI^AEY OF AMEKICAN METHODISM. 



brated by all our Churclies and xoeople witli devout thanksgiv- 
ing, by special religious services and liberal thank-offerings. 

2. This celebration shall commence on the first Tuesday in 
October, 1866, and continue through the month, at such times 
and places as may best suit the convenience of the Societies. 

3. The primary object of the celebration shall be the spiritual 
improvement of our members, and especially by reviewing the 
great things God hath wrought for us, the cultivating of feel- 
ings of gratitude for the blessings received through the agency 
of Methodism. 

4. As the gratitude of the heart ever seeks expression in out- 
ward acts, we invite as a spontaneous offering to Almighty God 
on this occasion j)ecuniary contributions from each " according 
as God hath prospered him," to be so appropriated as to render 
more efficient in the century to come those institutions and 
agencies to which the Church has been so deeply indebted in 
the century past. 

5. Two departments of Christian enterprise shall be placed 
before our people, one connectional, central, and monumental, 
the other local and distributive, and all shall be urged to 
make liberal appropriations to both according to their own 
discretion. 

6. The Board of Bishops shall appoint twelve traveling 
preachers and twelve laymen, who, in connection with the 
members of their own Board, shall be a committee to determ- 

^^e to vvhat objects and in what proportions the moneys 
raised as connectional funds shall be appropriated, and have 
power to take all steps necessary to their proper distribution. 

7. The local funds shall be appropriated to the cause of edu- 
cation and church extension under the direction of a committee 
consisting of an equal number of ministers and laymen ap- 
pointed by the several Annual Conferences within the bounds 
of which they are raised. 

8. Each Annual Conference shall provide for the delivery of 
a memorial sermon before its own body at the session next pre- 
ceding the centennial celebration, and also appoint a committee 
of an equal number of ministers and laymen to give advice and 
direction for the appropriate celebration of the centennial in 
our principal Churches, 



CON>s"ECTIONAL PLA^^. 



249 



9. As the highest authority of the Methodist Episcopal 
Church, we commend this whole subject to the prayerfal con- 
sideration of every minister, traveling and local, and ever^' 
official and private member of the Church, calling for the most 
systematic and energetic efforts everywhere to carry out in their 
true spiiit these noble plans ; and after due consideration, we 
deem it right to ask for and to expect not less than two millions 
of dollars for achievements which will be worthy of our great 
and honored Church, and which shall show to our descendants 
to the latest generations the gratitude we feel for the wonder- 
ful Providence which originated and has so largely blessed and 
prospered our beloved Church. 

10. We cordially invite our brethren in all the branches of 
the great Methodist family, in this and in other lands, to unite 
with us in this grand Centennial Celebration, that together we 
may lift our thanksgivings to the God of our fathers, and renew 
our consecration to his spiritual service. — Journal of General 
Conference^ 1864, pp. 445-447. 

COMMITTEE APPOIXTED BY THE BISHOPS. 

In accordance with the sixth of the above resolu- 
tions, the Board of Bishops appointed the following 
persons, to constitute, together with the Bishops, the 
Committee : 

Ministers^ 

Eev. George Peck, D.D. ; Eev. Charles Elliott,' D.D. ; Rev. 
John M'Clintock, D.D. ; Rev. D. P. Kidder, D.D. ; Rev. D. 
Patten, D.D.; Rev. E. Thomas; Rev. D. W. Bartine, D.D. ; 
Rev. F. C. HoUiday, D.D; Rev. Thomas Sewall, D.D.; Rev. 
James F. Chalfant ; Rev. Moses Hill ; Rev. F. A. Blades. 

Laymen. 

Thomas T. Tasker, Esq., Philadelphia; George C. Cook, 
Esq., Chicago, Hlinois; The Hon. James Bishop, K"ew Bruns- 
wick, New Jersey ; John Owen, Esq., Detroit, Michigan ; Isaac 
Rich, Esq., Boston ; General Clinton B. Fisk, St. Louis, Mis- 



250 CENTEK^lIiY OF AMEEIOAN METHODISM. 



souri ; I. P. Cook, Esq., Baltimore, Maryland ; The Hon. Gary A. 
Trimble, Chillicotlie, Ohio ; Oliyer Hoyt, Esq., New York city ; 
Alexander Bradley, Esq., Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; F. H. Root, 
Esq., BuffalOj New York ; Edward Sargent, Esq., Cincinnati, 
Ohio. 

This committee was convened, by the Board of 
Bishops, at Cleveland, Ohio, February 22, 1865. 

ACTION OF THE GENEKAL COMMITTEE. 

At the time appointed, the committee met at 
Cleveland. All the bishops were present except 
Bishop Thomson, then in India. The ministers and 
laymen of the committee were gathered from every 
part of the Chnrch : the East, the Center, the West, 
and the Pacific slope were all fairly in presence of 
each other in deliberation. It is believed that the 
Methodist Episcopal Chm'ch was thoroughly, as a 
whole, represented at Cleveland. 

The spirit of the committee was admirable. The 
utmost freedom of speech prevailed ; every bishop, 
every minister, and every layman on the committee 
took part in the discussions at some period of its pro- 
tracted session. All opinions were compared, all in- 
terests were weighed, and all proposed plans were 
discussed. The great aim was so to provide for the 
Connectional interests of the Church, and for such a 
Connectional demonstration of devotion to her wel- 
fare, as not only not to interfere with local wants, 
but also, and to a large extent, to provide for them. 



COlS^KECTIOlSrAL PLAK. 



251 



An adjourned meeting of tlie committee was held 
in Is'ew York on the 8th of November, 1865. The 
result of the deliberations of such a body of men, 
animated by such a spirit, is set forth in the final 
resolutions of the committee, as follows : 

Besohed^ That it is the sense of this committee that the Cen- 
tenary Educational Fund ought to be placed before our people 
as the prominent object for connectional contributions. 

Eesolved^ That if any contributors desire to specify the pre- 
cise objects of their centenary subscriptions, in whole or in 
part, it shall be open to them to name the following objects, 
namely : 

1. The Centenary Educational Fund. 

2. The Garrett Biblical School at Evanston. 

3. The Methodist General Biblical Institute at Concord, to 
be removed to the vicinity of Boston. 

4. A Biblical Institute in the Eastern Middle States. 

5. A Biblical Institute in Cincinnati or vicinity. 

6. A Biblical Institute on the Pacific coast. 

But contributions to these three last objects (4, 5, and 6) shall 
be retained and managed by the Centenary Educational Board 
till assured that enough has been actually raised from other 
sources to make the aggregate amount, including the connec- 
tional contributions to those respective objects, not less than 
one hundred and fifty thousand dollars in each case. 

7. The erection of Centenary Missionary buildings for the 
Mission House at Kew York. 

8. The Irish Connectional Fund. 

9. The Biblical School at Bremen, Germany. 

10. The Chartered Fund. (Such sums as contributors may 
desu-e to appropriate in that way to the support of worn-out 
preachers, their widows and oi-phans.) 

Resolved^ That all the unspecified funds raised throughout 
the Church, and also all sums specifically contributed for the 
" Centenary Educational Fund," be placed in the hands of a 
Board, to be appointed as provided in a subsequent resolution, 



252 CEKTE:N'ARy OF AMERICAN METHODISM. 



to be called tlie Centenary Connectional Educational Board 
of tlie Methodist Episcopal Cliurcli. 

Besohed^ That the said board shall securely invest the en- 
tire principal funds, and shall appropriate the interest only 
from time to time, at their discretion, to the following purposes 
and none other, namely : 

a. To aid young men preparing for the foreign missionary 
work of the Methodist Episcopal Church. 

K To aid young men preparing for the ministry of the 
Methodist Episcopal Church. These two objects to be reached 
through the Missionary Society, the bishops, and such educa- 
tional societies of the Church as may be approved by the 
board. 

c. To the aid of the two biblical or theological schools now 
in existence, and of such others as may, with the approval of 
the General Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, 
hereafter be established. 

d. To the aid of universities, colleges, or academies now 
existing under the patronage of the Church, or which may 
hereafter be established. 

Provided^ 1. That no appropriation shall be made by the 
board at any time for building purposes, either for biblical 
schools, or for universities, colleges, or academies. 

2. That no university, college, or academy not now in 
existence shall be aided by the board, unless the board shall 
first have been consulted, and shall have approved of the 
establishment and organization of such institution. 

Besolved^ That the board shall consist of twelve trustees, of 
whom two shall be bishops, four ministers, and six laymen, 
of which number five shall be a quorum ; and no trustee shall 
receive any compensation for his services, except for expenses 
in attending the sessions of the board. 

Resolved^ That the board be authorized to secure a suitable 
charter, which shall empower the board to receive, hold, and 
convey real and personal estate, and to receive and administer 
bequests and legacies : also to fix the seat of its operations and 
of its place of meeting from time to time, and to appoint, if 
need be, a secretary and treasurer, with proper compensation, 
who shall be required to give suitable bonds. 



CONNECTIOJSTAL PLAN". 



253 



Besolved^ Tliat the bishops be authorized and requested to 
appoint the first board, and that at its first meeting the board 
shall settle by lot the terms of service of its individual mem- 
bers in such manner that four trustees shall go out of office 
with each and every General Conference term of four years, and 
that all vacancies be filled as follows, namely: The General 
Conference shall nominate two persons for each vacancy, and 
the trustees shall choose one to fill the vacancy ; provided, how- 
ever, that all vacancies occmTing more than six months before 
the session of the General Conference shall be filled by the 
bishops, the persons so appointed to hold office only up to the 
time of the General Conference, when their places shall be held 
as vacant, and shall be filled as aforesaid, 

Hesolvedj That a committee be appointed, to be called 
"The Central Centenary Committee of Arrangements and 
Correspondence," whose duty it shall be to correspond with 
the conference Centenary Committees, to prepare and publish 
the necessary documents, through the periodical press and 
otherwise, and to make such other arrangements as may be 
necessary to secure the general sympathy and co-operation 
of the Church in the connectional part of the Centenary collec- 
tions. 

Besolvedj That a committee of six be appointed by the 
Chair to nominate the Central Committee." 

The Chair appointed the committee of six. After 
a short deliberation the committee reported the follow- 
ing names, to constitute the " Central Centenary 
Committee of Arrangements and Correspondence," 
namely: Dr. M'Clintock, Dr. Curry, Dr. Crooks, 
Mr. Oliver Hoyt, Mr. James Bishop, and Mr. C. C. 
IsTorth. 

Finally, a number of Branch Centenary Committees 
were appointed, and the Central Committee was au- 
thorized to appoint additional branches. A list of 



254 CENTENARY OF AMERICAN METHODISM. 



the committees appointed at Cleveland will be found 
below. 

THE CENTRAL CENTENARY COMMITTEE. 

The Central Committee began its sessions, in the 
city of New York, soon after the session of the 
General Committee. Its first duty was to distrib- 
ute the Minutes of the General Committee, copies 
of which were sent to every member of that com- 
mittee, to all members of the branch committees, as 
far as then formed, to every presiding elder through- 
out the Church, and to all the editors of Methodist 
papers. 

The next step of the committee was to form ad- 
ditional branch committees. The General Com- 
mittee had already appointed branches for the prin- 
cipal cities. It was thought best, in order to reach 
the whole Church, that a branch committee should 
be formed for each presiding elder's district, with the 
presiding elder at its head. Circulars were issued in 
May, 1865, to all the presiding elders, requesting them 
to nominate committees. In many cases the answers 
to this circular were long delayed, and even yet 
(ISTovember, 1865) some of the districts are not pro- 
vided for. The Eev. W. C. Hoyt, who was appointed 
secretary of the committee in August, entered into a 
very extensive correspondence on the subject ; and it 
is now hoped that within a few months every district 



CONNECTIONAL PLAN. 



255' 



in the Churcli will be represented. A complete list 
will be issued before October, 1866. 

CITY BRANCH COMMITTEES. 

BALToroEE : Thomas Kelso, William Hamilton, D.D., I. P. 
Cook. Boston ; K E. Cobleigh, D.D., Hon J. Sleeper, I. Rich. 
Brooejlyn: Hon. M. F. Oclell, John French, Samuel Truslow. 
Buffalo : Eev. J. E. Robie, F. H. Boot, H. H. Otis. Cextrai. 
Xew York : Rev. D. D. Lore, Mr. Wood, of Rochester, Rev. W. 
H. Goodwin, Samuel Luckey, D.D., G. Peck, D.D. Chicago : 
T. M. Eddy, D.D., J. Y. Farwell, A. R. Scranton. Chillicothe, 
Ohio: William T. M'Clmtock, William M'Kell, O. Harmen. 
Cln-ciknati : James F. Chalfant, Rev. J. M. Reid, D.D., Harvey 
De Camp. Cletelaisd, O. : H. Benton,. W. P. Cook, Rev. M. 
Hill. Concord, K H. : Rev. E. Adams, William Prescott, M.D., 
Hon. T. L. Tullock. Columbus, O. : Rev. J. M. Trimble, D.D., 
J. F. Bartlett, Timothy Ccirpenter, Detroit : S. Cements, Jr., 
D. Preston, Hon. John Owen. Denver City: O. A. Willard, 
Gov. John Evans, Rev. B. T. Yincent. Hartford : Rev. M. L. 
Scudder, J. F. Judd, C. P. Case. Indl^jstapolis : Rev. F. C. 
Holliday, D.D., O. Toucy, J. S. Dunlop. Kalamazoo, Mich. : 
F. D. Hemmingly, S. W. Walker, H. Wood. Memphis, Tenn. : 
Rev. Wm. Hawkins, F. A. Marou, Dr. C. Collins. Middle- 
town: Rev. John Pegg, Jr., Prof. John Yan Yleck, Hon. D. 
W. Camp. MoNTPELiER, Yt. : Rev. E. J. Scott, Hon. P. Dil- 
lingham, Rev. P. P. Ray. Nashville, Tenn. : Rev. W. H. 
ISTorris, James K. Ferris. JSTewark : C. Walsh, Rev. L. R. Dunn, 
Thomas Campbell. ISTew Haven: Rev. T. H. Burch, James 
Punderford, W. O. Armstrong. ISTew Orleans : Rev. J. P. 
Kewman, D.D., Rev. W. H. Peame, G. W. Ames. Philadel- 
phia : Joseph Castle, D.D., J. Whiteman, C. Heiskell. Pitts- 
burgh : Dr. S. H. ISTesbit, Alexander Bradley, W. H. Kincaid. 
Portland, Me. : E. Clark, M.D., George Webber, D.D., S. Rich. 
Portland, Oregon : Rev.' H. C. Benson, D.D., Hon. "N. C. 
Gibbs, Rev. William Roberts. Providence, R. L : Hon. W. 
B. Lawton, Rev. Paul Townsend, J. D. Flint. San Francisco ; 
Rev. E. Thomas, A. Merrill, W. H. Coddington. St. Paul, 
Minn. : Rev. C. Brooks, D.D., Rev. 0. Hobart, Hon. John 

I 



256 CENTElsrAEY OF AMERICAN METHODISM. 

Nikols. St. Loijis, Mo. : Rev. B. F. Crary, D.D., Gen. C. B. 
risk, S. Ricli. Virginia City: Gov. H. G. Blaisdell, Bey. 
Thomas S. Dunn, J. Faul. Washington City: Bev. John 
Lanahan, D.D., Bey. B. H. Nadal, W. Woodward, Esq. 
Wheeling, Ya. : Bey. J. Drummond, D.D., Hon, C. Hubbard, 
A. M. Adams. Wilmington, Del. : J. Ganse, G. W. Sparks, 
Bey. J. Biddle. 

CEKTENARY RELIGIOUS SERVICES. 

The primary object of the whole Centenary cele- 
bration is declared by the General Conference to be 

The spiritual improyement of our members; and especially 
by reviewing the great things God hath wrought for us, the 
cultivating of feelings of gratitude for the blessings received 
through the agency of Methodism. 

To carry ont this object the General Conference ' 
further directs that 

Each Annual Conference shall provide for the delivery of a 
memorial sermon before its own body at the session next pre- 
ceding the centennial celebration, and also appoint a committee 
of an equal number of ministers and laymen to give advice and 
direction for the appropriate celebration of the Centennial in 
our principal Churches. 

The Coram ittee^ in accordance with a generally 
expressed desire from various parts of the Church, 
recommend also the following : 

That the first Sunday in January, 1866, be observed as a day 
of special and united prayer for the divine blessing upon the 
Centenary services of the year, and for a general revival of 
religion that the Centenary year may prove to be an epoch in 
the spiritual progress of the Church ; and that the pastors of 
all our Churches be requested to read the Centenary Besolu- 
tions of the General Conference and to expound them to their 
people on that occasion. 



CONKECTIOXAL PLAN. 



257 



That a special service be set apart in each of our societies 
where there is a Sunday-school, in October, 1866, for a children's 
celebration of the Centenary festival, and that suitable arrange- 
ments be made in due time by the Branch Committees in con- 
cert mth the pastors and Sunday-school teachers. 

That the last Sunday of October, 1866, be observed as a 
day of Special Ceutenary services, and that the Central Com- 
mittee x^repare and publish a proclamation and programme in 
reference to the observance of the day. 

The Centenary Eeligious Services will tliiis in- 
clude : (1.) The services of the first Sunday in 
January, 1866. (2.) The memorial sermon before 
each Annual Conference. (3.) The Church services 
in October, 1866, plans for which are to be suggested 
by the Annual Conference Committees. (4.) The 
Sunday-school services in October, 1866, to be ar- 
ranged by the Centenary Branch Committees, in con- 
cert with pastors and Sunday-school officers. (5.) The 
Special Centenary Thanksgiving service of the last 
Sunday in October, 1866, under uniform arrange- 
ments for the whole Church. 

Other religious services, such as general class- 
meetings, prayer-meetings, district meetings, etc., 
will doubtless be held, under the directions of the 
Presiding Elders, Pastors, and Branch Committees 
in the various localities. 

CEXTENARY CONTEIBUTIOIS'S. 

The General Conference directs (see above, p. 248) 

that two classes of objects, Connectional and Local, 

17 



258 cente:n'Ary of americak Methodism. 

shall be placed before the people for tbeir con- 
tributions. What the connectional objects shall 
be has been decided by the Joint Committee of 
Ministers and Laymen appointed by the General 
Conference for that purpose. What the local ob- 
jects shall be is to be decided, in each conference, 
by a Committee of Ministers and Za?/mm appointed 
by the conference. 

COITNECTIOlSrAL OBJECTS. 

The objects named for contributions by the Cleve- 
land Committee are, as will have been seen, (pages 
251 and 252,) all of a Connectional character. The 
first place is given to Education. The chief object 
presented to the Church, for connectional contribu- 
tions, is the foundation of a Permanent Fund, to be 
called "The Centenary Educational Fund;'' the 
interest only of which is to be employed in aiding 
our institutions of learning and in helping poor 
young men to prepare themselves for the ministry 
at home, or for the missionary work abroad. As 
Dr. Stevens remarks, (p. 242,) "a more practicable 
or more sublime design is hardly possible to the 
denomination." See his remarks, at the page cited, 
in confirmation of this broad statement. Our more 
thoughtful and far-seeing contributors will doubtless 
give to this object more largely than to any of the 
others named. 



CONI^TECTIONAL PLAN. 



259 



It is the one object to whicL. every member of the 
Churcli, it is hoped, will contribute something, inas- 
much as it is, of all the objects named, the most 
thoroughly Connectional and the most clearly monu- 
mental. A permanent fund of a million of dollars, 
or more, will be a monumental institution, more 
lasting than brass, to carry down to posterity the 
gratitude of the Methodists of 1866, as testified by 
their Centenary gifts. It will form at the same time 
our most beneficent legacy of the Centenary year to 
the century that is to follow. The rapid march of 
the census of American population outstrips all 
calculation. By the j-ear 1900 there will be teeming 
millions in regions now just opened to settlement 
and to enterprise. Moreover, the whole South is 
just reopened by the extinction of the great rebel- 
lion. For all this vast population our Permanent 
Fund will afi*ord a steady assistance and stimulus to 
effort for the great work of Christian education. 
Let us make this fund a grand and worthy Centenary 
monument. If there be failure in any part of our 
plan, let there be none in this. 

All the other objects proposed by the Committee 
have, it will be seen, a Connectional character. The 
Committee has taken it for granted that the con- 
ferences severally will provide, in their local col- 
lections, for their colleges and academies. But 
the interest of theological education is a com- 



260 CENTEKAEY OF AMERICAN METHODISM. 



inon and connectional one. Ministers educated at 
Boston or Evanston, in 'New York or Ohio, or 
even on the Pacific coast, are educated for the whole 
Church. They may be transferred, in a year after 
graduation, from the East to the West, or from the 
iSTorth to the South. The whole Church is interest- 
ed in each of the existing theological schools, and 
in the new ones contemplated by the Centenary 
Committee, because it is the interest of the whole 
Church that her young men everywhere, who are 
called to the ministry, should have the opportunity 
of theological trainins;. 

The Missionary Society is also a thoroughly con- 
nectional interest. The society must have a perma- 
nent home. Its Centenary Hall will not only aiffbrd 
the necessary accommodation for the vast operations 
of the society, but vrill also be a permanent and 
visible monument of the centenary year. 

The Irish Fund is also a connectional enterprise. 
There is hardly a corner of Methodism in the 
United States that has not been strengthened by 
Irish Methodism. There is not a conference which 
does not contain ministers from Ireland or of Irish 
descent. There are more Methodists from Ireland 
in our Church than are left in Ireland. The 
small contribution named by the Centenary Com- 
mittee will no doubt be ofiered freely by the 
Church. Those of our members who are them- 



CONNECTIO^TAL PLAN. 



261 



selves from Ireland, or wlio are of Irisli descent, 
will, no doubt, see to it that this part of our con- 
nectional plan shall not fail. And they will be 
aided by many others who will remember that 
Methodism was first planted in America by Em- 
bury and Strawbridge, both Irishmen, and who 
will see a special fitness in recognizing this obliga- 
tion on the Centenary occasion. The very Cente- 
nary date itself is fixed by the date (1766) of the 
labors of Embury, the Irish local preacher, who 
was the honored instrument of planting Methodism 
in America. 

The Biblical School at Bremen afi'ords instruction 
to young men preparing for the ministry in Ger- 
many, as well as in America. Its support appeals to 
no single locality of Methodism, but to the whole 
Church. Let us remember that the Palatine Irish, 
among whom Embury and his associates were trained, 
were not Eomanists, but the children of German 
Protestants. Let us remember, too, that our Meth- 
odist theology, and especially our Methodist view of 
practical and experimental religion, were originally 
derived by Wesley from German sources. It was 
the reading of Luther on Galatians that led Wesley 
to true faith in Christ. It was the influence of the 
suggestions of Bohler and the Moravians that gave 
his mind the first bias toward the full evangelical 
view of faith and its effects. (See pp. 29-32.) And 



262 CENTEKARY OF AMERICAN M^ITHODISM. 

with this sense of gratitude for the past, let ns con- 
sult our security for the future, by doing all we can 
to evangelize, in their own home^ the Germans who 
are to make up so large a part of the future Ameri- 
can people. 

MODES OF COi^TPJBUTION. 

The general modes of giving to the Centenary 
objects are two, contributions by individuals, and 
Church collections. In addition to these, special 
provision has been made, as will be seen below, for 
Sunday-school collections. 

Contributions. 

1. Contrihutions may be made at any time between 
this date and the end of October, 1866. It is sug- 
gested that, in all large cities and important towns, 
preliminary meetings of leading laymen be held, for 
information as to the plan and scope of the move- 
ment, for the distribution of Centenary documents, 
and for the securing of subscriptions. Liberal dona- 
tions from our prominent members, at an early date, 
will give tone and spirit to the whole Centenary enter- 
prise. The Pastors and Branch Committees should 
take pains to get up such meetings, and to see that 
all contributions be reported duly to the treasurer. 

2. Contributions may be made payable in cash, 
or in such installments as the donor may find con- 
venient to himself ; such installments, of course, being 



CONKECTIONAL PLA^. 



263 



properly secui^ed, to avoid trouble or litigation in 
case of death. 

3. Donors will, in all cases, specify what amount 
of their contribution is intended for Connectional, 
and what for Local pui^poses. Thus, suppose that a 
person intends to give a certain sum, he may simply 
say, "I give so much to the Connectional and so 
much to the Local Fund.*' In that case his connec- 
tional sum will go to the Permanent Educational 
Fund," while his local sum will be appropriated 
by the Conference Local Committee. 

Or, he may wish to divide his connectional con- 
tributions among the several connectional objects 
named. In that case he may say, *^ I give so much 
to the Centenary Educational Fund ; so much to the 
Garrett Biblical Institute, (or to the Boston Biblical 
Institute, etc., as the case may be;) so much for 
Centenary Mission Buildings at Xew York ; so much 
for the Irish Fund ; so much for the Biblical Insti- 
tute at Bremen; and so much for the Chartered 
Fund." Of course, every donor may vary his relative 
contributions to each of these objects at his own 
pleasure. But let it always be borne in mind that 
the "Centenary Educational Fund" is the chief 
object to be considered. 

Collections. 

1. It is understood that Centenary collections will 
be taken, in all our churches throughout the land, 



264: CENTENARY OF AMERICAN METHODISM. 

before the close of October, 1866. The collections 
may be fixed for some special day in that month, or 
may be taken up at every meeting to be held during 
the month, as may seem most expedient to the local 
authorities. 

2. It is earnestly hoped that there will be universal 
agreement to the principle that the plate collec 
tions^ and all unspecified contributions made in the 
public congregation, shall be divided equally between 
the Connectional and Local Funds. 

3. It is suggested that as the month of October, 
1866, is appropriated by the General Conference 
for Centenary collections, it is desirable that, as far 
as possible, all other special collections should be 
avoided in our Churches during that month. 

Sunday-School Collections. 

The Central Committee having called the attention 
of the General Committee to the importance of 
enlisting our Sunday-schools in the centenary move- 
ment, after fully considering the subject the following 
action was taken : 

1. That a Sunday-school children's fund be established for 
the following purposes and under the following conditions: 
(1.) The fund to be vested in and administered by the Board 
of Trustees already authorized, but to be kept as a separate 
fund. (2.) The interest of it to be appropriated to assist 
meritorious Sunday-school scholars of either sex who may need 
help in obtaining a more advanced education. (3.) Each con- 
ference to share in the annual proceeds of this fund proper- 



COIs^NECTIOXAL PLA^T. 



265 



tionately to the number of Sunday-scliool cldldren under its 
care. (4.) That the beneficiaries within the bounds of each 
annual conference be selected in such manner as each confer- 
ence shall direct. 

2. Each Sunday-school scholar who shall contribute one 
dollar to the Children's Fund, and each one who shall col- 
lect five dollars for the same, and pay that amount into the 
treasury, shall be entitled to receive a medal as hereinafter 
described. 

These medals will have thg head of Kev. John 
Wesley on one side, and that of Bishop Asburj, the 
pioneer Bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church, 
on the other. The inscriptions will be : on one side, 
'^Children's Medal;" and on the other, Centenary 
of American Methodism, 1866." 

It is recommended that a special service be set 
apart in each of our societies where there is a Sun- 
day-school, in October, 1866, for a childreni^s celebra- 
tion of the centenary festival, and that suitable 
arrangements be made in due time by the branch 
committees, in concert with the pastors and Sunday- 
school officers. We think this subject as it is here 
presented cannot fail to secure the hearty co-opera- 
tion of all our Sunday-schools — officers, teachers, 
scholars, and friends. 

CEI^TTEIs^ARY DOCUMENTS. 

The Central Committee has commenced the publi- 
cation of a series of Centenary Documents^ which 



266 CEKTENAEY OF AMEEICAN METHODISM. 

will be issued from time to time. Among these 
documents will be fonnd the Eesolutions of tlie 
General Conference^ the Address of the Bishops, the 
Address of the Central Committee, Instructions to 
Eranch Committees, and several tracts explanatory 
of the Centenary movement, and of its objects. 
These documents may be obtained of the Branch 
Committees, of the Book Agents at "New York, 
Cincinnati, Chicago, tod the Depositories generally, 
or upon application in writing to the Secretary of 
the Central Committee, 200 Mulberry-street, 'New 
York. 

CONCLUSION. 

The General Conference of 1864, after setting 
forth the two great channels of contribution, Con- 
nectional and Local, for the gifts of the people, 
appealed to the Church in the following stirring 
words : 

As tlie Mgliest authority of the Methodist Episcopal Church, 
we commend this whole subject to the prayerful consideration 
of every minister, traveling and local, and every official and 
private member of the Church, calling for the most systematic 
and energetic efforts everywhere to carry out in their true spirit 
these noble plans; and after due consideration, we deem it 
right to ask for and to expect not less than two millions of 
dollars for achievements which will be worthy of our great 
and honored Church, and which shall show to our descendants 
to the latest generations the gratitude we feel for the wonder- 
ful Providence which originated and has so largely blessed and 
prospered our beloved Church. 



CONITECTIONAL PLAK. 



267 



The Slim of two millions is here named as the 
lowest mark at which the Church should aim in its 
Centenary offerings of gratitude. It is believed that 
this minimum will be largely transcended; and, 
indeed, that the final summing up will be nearer 
four millions than two. And without pretending to 
dictate to the ministry or the membership of the 
Church, we feel it our duty to make the following 
concluding suggestions : 

1. One great object of the Centenary movement 
should be to promote the Connectional spirit of 
Methodism, and to bind anew, in cords of fraternal 
love and of devotion to the common cause, the East, 
the West, the K"orth, and the South. So let us 
rebuke, by the grand unity of our vast societies, the 
spirit of secession, whether in Church or State. 
Unity in Christ is one of the needful marks of the 
true Church, and to promote the unity of the Ameri- 
can people is one of the obvious functions of the 
Church in this country. "We trust that this mark 
and function of the Church will be dwelt on in every 
pulpit of Methodism at some period of the Centenary 
celebration. 

2. One of the most signal and obvious ways of 
showing our Connectional spirit' will be to contribute 
to the Centenary Educational Permanent Fund, and 
to the other Connectional objects named by the 
General Conference and its committees. As we 



268 CENTENARY OF AMERICAN METHODISM. 



have saidj the whole Church, and at the same time 
every locality within its bounds, is interested in these 
objects. 

Local objects will doubtless be urged, with earnest- 
ness and pertinacity, by those interested in them. 
We do not wish to overshadow these objects so as 
to hinder their success. At the same time let us 
remember that these objects are always with us, 
always at our doors, and therefore always likely to 
be taken care of. But our Permanent Fund is to be 
the great mark and proof of our connectional feeling 
as demonstrated by our Centenary gifts. Let the 
Centenary year be our Sabbath of Church fellow- 
ship ; one year, at least, out of the century, in which 
we shall rise above all local and sectional thoughts, 
feelings, and interests, into the higher atmosphere of 
our Unity in the Church, and in Christ the Head of 
the Church. 

CENTRAL COMIVIITTEE. 

J. M'Clintock, D.D., Oliver Hoyt, Esq., 

D. CuKRy, D.D., James Bishop, Esq., 

G. R. Crooks, D.D., C. C. North, Esq. 
"W. C. HoYT, Secretary. 

Geotrajl Treasurers, Carlton & Porter, 200 Mulberry- 
street, New York. 

Local Treasurers will be appointed by each Brancb Com* 
mittee. 



APPENDIX. 



No. I. 

THE GENERAL RULES. 

THE NATURE, DESIG:^^, AND GENERAL RULES OF OUR 
UNITED SOCIETIES. 

(1) In the latter end of the year 1739, eight or teu 
persons came to Mr. Wesley in London, who appeared 
to be deeply convinced of sin, and earnestly groaning for 
redemption. They desired (as did two or three more 
the next day) that he would spend some time with them 
in prayer, and advise them how to flee from the wrath to 
come ; which they saw continually hanging over their 
heads. That he might have more time for this great 
work, he appointed a day when they might all come to- 
gether ; which from thenceforward they did every week, 
namely, on Thursday^ in the evening. To these, and as 
many more as desired to join with them, (for their num- 
ber increased daily,) he gave those advices from time to 
time which he judged most needful for them ; and they 
always concluded their meeting with prayer suited to 
their several necessities. 

(2) This was the rise of the United Society, first in 
Europe^ and then in America. Such a society is no other 
than " a company of men having the form and seeking 



270 CENTENARY OF AMERICAN METHODISM. 



the power of godliness^ united in order to pray together'^ 
to receive the loord of exhortation^ and to watch over one 
another in love^ that they may help each other to work 
out their salvation^ 

(3) That it may the more easily be discerned whether 
they are indeed working out their own salvation, each 
society is divided into smaller companies, called classes, 
according to their respective places of abode. There 
are about twelve persons in a class; one of whom is 
styled the leader. It is his duty, 

I. To see each j)erson in his class once a week at least ; 
in order, 

1. To inquire how their souls prosper. 

2. To advise, reprove, comfort, or exhort as occasion 
may require. 

3. To receive what they are willing to give toward the 
relief of the preachers. Church, and poor.* 

II. To meet the ministers and the stewards of the so- 
ciety once a week ; in order, 

1. To inform the minister of any that are sick, or of 
any that walk disorderly, and will not be reproved. 

2. To pay the stewards what they have received of 
their several classes in the week preceding. 

(4) There is only one condition previously required of 
those who desire admission into these societies, " a de- 
sire to flee from the wrath to come, and to be saved -from 
their sins." But wherever this is really fixed in the soul, 
it will be shown by its fruits. It is therefore expected of 
all who continue therein, that they should continue to 
evidence their desire of salvation. 

First, By doing no harm, by avoiding evil of every 

* This part refers to towns and cities ; where the poor are generally 
numerous, and Church expenses considerable. 



APPEM)IX. 



271 



kind, especially that which is most generally practiced ; 
such as, 

The taking of the name of God in vain. 

The profaning the day of the Xord, either by doing 
ordinary work therein, or by buying or selling. 

Drunkenness, buying or selling spirituous liquors, or 
drinking them, unless in cases of extreme necessity. 

Slaveholding ; buying or selling slaves. 

Fighting^ quarreling, brawling, brother going to law 
with brother ; returning evil for evil ; or railing for rail- 
ing ; the using many words in buying or selling. 

The buying or selling goods that have not paid the 
duty. 

The giving or taking things on usury ^ that is, unlaw- 
ful interest. 

Uncharitable or unprofitable conversation ; particu- 
larly speaking evil of magistrates or of ministers. 

Doing to others as we would not they should do 
unto as. 

Doing what we know is not for the glory of God ; as, 

The putting on of gold ayid costly apparel. 

The taking such diversions as cannot be used in the 
name of the Lord Jesus. 

The singing those songs^ or reading those books^ 
which do not tend to the knowledge or love of God. 

Softness and needless self-indulgence. 

Laying up treasure upon earth. 

Borrowing without a probability of paying ; or taking 
up goods without a probability of paying for them. 

(5) It is expected of all who continue in these so- 
cieties, that they should continue to evidence their desire 
of salvation, 

Secondly, By doing good; by being in every kind 



272 CENTEN'ARY OF AMERICAN METHODISM. 

merciful after their power; as they have opportunity, 
doing good of every possible sort, and, as far as pos- 
sible, to all men. 

To their bodies, of the ability which God giveth, by 
giving food to the hungry, by clothing the naked, by 
visiting or helping them that are sick or in prison. 

To their souls, by instructing, reproving, or exhorting 
all we have any intercourse with ; tram^pling under foot 
that enthusiastic doctrine, that " we are not to do good 
unless our hearts he free to it,'^^ 

By doing good, especially to them that are of the 
household of faith, or groaning so to be ; employing them 
preferably to others; buying one of another; helping 
each other in business ; and so much the more because 
the world will love its own, and them only. 

By all possible diligence 2iVL^ frugality^ that the Gos- 
pel be not blamed. 

By running with patience the race which is set before 
them, denying themselves^ and taking up their cross 
daily; submitting to bear the reproach of Christ, to be 
as the filth and ofiscouring of the world ; and looking 
that men should say all manner of evil of them falsely 
for the Lord''s sake, 

(6) It is expected of all who desire to continue in 
these societies, that they should continue to evidence 
their desire of salvation, 

Thirdly, By attending upon all the ordinances of God : 
such are, 

The public worship of God : 

The ministry of the word, either read or expounded : 
The Supper of the Lord : 
Family and private prayer : 
Searching the Scriptures ; and 



APPEM)IX. 



273 



Fasting or abstinence. 

(Y) These are the general rules of our societies ; all 

which we are taught of God to observe, even in his 

written word, which is the only rule, and the sufficient 

rule, both of our faith and practice. And all these we 

know his Spirit writes on truly awakened hearts. If 

there be any among us who observe them not, who 

habitually break any of them, let it be known unto them 

who watch over that soul as tliey who must give an 

account. We will admonish him of the error of his 

ways. We will bear with him for a season. But if 

then he repent not, he hath no more place among us. 

We have delivered our own souls. 

18 



APPENDIX. 



275 



No. II. 

ARTICLES OF RELIGION. 
I. Of Faith ix the Holy Teinity. 

There is but one living and true God, everlasting, 
without body or parts, of infinite power, wisdom, and 
goodness ; the maker and preserver of all things, visible 
and invisible. And in unity of this Godhead, there are 
three persons, of one substance, power, and eternity, the 
Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. 

II. Of the Wokd, or Sok of God, who was made 

VERY MAN. 

The Son, who is the Word of the Father, the very 
and eternal God, of one substance with the Father, took 
man's nature in the womb of the blessed virgin ; so that 
two whole and perfect natures, that is to say, the God- 
head and manhood, were joined together in one person, 
never to be divided, whereof is one Christ, very God and 
very man, who truly suffered, was crucified, dead and 
buried, to reconcile his Father to us, and to be a sacri- 
fice, not only for original guilt, but also for actual sins 
of men. 

III. Of the Resurrection of Christ. 

Christ did truly rise again from the dead, and took 
again his body, with all things appertaining to the per- 
fection of man's nature, wherewith he ascended into 



276 CENTEISTARY OF AMEEICAN METHODISM. 



heaven, and there sitteth until he return to judge all men 
at the last day. 



The Holy Ghost, proceeding from the Father and the 
Son, is of one substance, majesty, and glory with the 
Father and the Son, very and eternal God. 

V. The SuFFiciEi^^CY of the Holy Sceiptuees for 
Salvatio]^. 

The Holy Scriptures contain all things necessary to 
salvation; so that whatsoever is not read therein, nor 
may be proved thereby, is not to be required of any 
man, that it should be believed as an article of faith, or 
be thought requisite or necessary to salvation. In the 
name of the Holy Scripture, we do understand those 
canonical books of the Old and New Testament, of 
whose authority was never any doubt in the Church. 



IV. Of the Holy Ghost. 



The Names of the CANomoAL Books. 



Genesis, 

Exodus, 

Leviticus, 

Numbers, 

Deuteronomy, 

Joshua, 

Judges, 

Ruth, 

The First Book of Samuel, 
The Second Book of Samuel, 
The First Book of Kings, 
The Second Book of Kings, 



The First Book of Chronicles, 
The Second Book of Chronicles, 
The Book of Ezra, 
The Book of Nehemiah, 
The Book of Estlier, 
The Book of Job, 
The Psalms, 
The Proverbs, 

Ecclesiastes, or the Preacher, 
Cantica, or Songs of Solomon, 
Four Prophets the greater, 
Twelve Prophets the lesFj • 



All the books of the New Testament, as they are com- 
monly received, w^e do receive and account canonical. 



APPENDIX. 



277 



VI. Of the Old Testameot. 

The Old Testament is not contrary to the New ; for 
both in the Old and New Testament everlasting life is 
offered to mankind by Christ, who is the only Mediator 
between God and man, being both God and man. 
Wherefore they are not to be heard who feign that the 
old fathers did look only for transitory promises. Al- ^ 
though the law given from God by Moses, as touching 
ceremonies and rites, doth not bind Christians, nor ought 
the civil precepts thereof of necessity be received in any 
commonwealth ; yet, notwithstanding, no Christian what- 
soever is free from the obedience of the commandments 
which are called moral. 

VII. Of Original or Birth Sin. 

Original sin standeth not in the following of Adam, 
(as the Pelagians do vainly talk,) but it is the corruption 
of the nature of every man, that naturally is engendered 
of the offspring of Adam, whereby man is very far gone 
from original righteousness, and of his own nature in- 
clined to evil, and that continually. 

VIII. Of Free Will. 

The condition of man after the fall of Adam is such, 
that he cannot turn and prepare himself, by his own nat- 
ural strength and works, to faith, and calling upon God ; 
wherefore we have no power to do good works, pleasant 
and acceptable to God, without the grace of God by 
Christ preventing us, that we may have a good will, and 
working with us, when we have that good will. 



278 CENTENARY OF AMERICAN METHODISM. 



IX. Of the Justification of Man. 

We are accounted righteous before God, only for the 
merit of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ by faith, 
and not for our own works or deservings. Wherefore, 
that we are justified by faith only, is a most wholesome 
doctrine, and very full of comfort. 

X. Of Good Works. 

Although good works, which are the fruits of faith, 
and follow after justification, cannot put away our sins, 
and endure the severity of God's judgments ; yet are 
they pleasing and acceptable to God in Christ, and 
spring out of a true and lively faith, insomuch that by 
them a lively faith may be as evidently known as a tree 
is discerned by its fruit. 

XI. Of Works of Supererogation. 

Voluntary works, besides, over, and above God's 
commandments, which are called works of supereroga- 
tion, cannot be taught without arrogancy and impiety. 
For by them men do declare that they do not only ren- 
der unto God as much as they are bound to do, but that 
they do more for his sake than of bounden duty is re- 
quired : whereas Christ saith plainly. When ye have 
done all that is commanded you, say. We are unprofita- 
ble servants. 

XII. Of Sin after Justification. 

Not every sin willingly committed after justification 
is the sin against the Holy Ghost, and unpardonable. 
Wherefore, the grant of repentance is not to be denied 



APPENDIX. 



279 



to such as fall into sin after justification ; after we have 
received the Holy Ghost, we may depart from grace 
given, and fall into sin, and, by the grace of God, rise 
again and amend our lives. And therefore they are to 
be condemned who say they can no more sin as long as 
they live here ; or deny the place of forgiveness to such 
as truly repent. 

XIII. Of the Church. 

The visible Church of Christ is a congregation of 
faithful men, in which the pure word of God is preached, 
and the sacraments duly administered, according to 
Christ's ordinance, in all those things that of necessity 
are requisite to the same. 

XIV. Of Purgatoey. 

The Romish doctrine concernmg purgatory, pardon, 
worshiping, and adoration, as well of images as of relics, 
and also invocation of saints, is a fond thing, vainly 
invented, and grounded upon no warrant of Scripture, 
but repugnant to the word of God. 

XV. Of Speaking m the Congregation in such a 
Tongue as the People understand. 

It is a thing plainly repugnant to the word of God, 
and the custom of the primitive Church, to have public 
prayer in the Church, or to minister the sacraments, in a 
tongue not understood by the people. 

XVI. Of the Sacraments. 

Sacraments, ordained of Christ, are not only badges 
or tokens of Christian men's profession ; but rather they 



280 CENTENARY OF AMERICAN METHODISM. 



are certain signs of grace, and God's good will toward 
us, by the which he doth work invisibly in us, and doth 
not only quicken, but also strengthen and confirm our 
faith in him. 

There are two sacraments ordained of Christ our Lord^ 
in the Gospel ; that is to say, Baptism and the Supper of 
the Lord. 

Those five commonly called sacraments, that is to say, 
confirmation, penance, orders, matrimony, and extreme 
unction, are not to be counted for sacraments of the 
Gospel, being such as have partly grown out of the cor- 
rupt following of the apostles ; and partly are states of 
life allowed in the Scriptures, but yet have not the like 
nature of Baptism and the Lord's Supper, because they 
have not any visible sign or ceremony ordained of God. 

The sacraments were not ordained of Christ to be 
gazed upon, or to be carried about ; but that we should 
duly use them. And in such only as worthily receive 
the same, they have a wholesome effect or operation^ 
but they that receive them unworthily, purchase to 
themselves condemnation, as St. Paul saith. 1 Cor. xi, 29. 

XVII. Of Baptism. 

Baptism is not only a sign of profession, and mark of 
difierence, whereby Christians are distinguished from 
others that are not baptized ; but it is also a sign of re- 
generation, or the new birth. The baptism of young 
children is to be retained in the Church. 

XVIII. Of the Lord's Supper. 

The Supper of the Lord is not only a sign of the love 
that Christians ought to have among themselves one to 



APPE]ST)IX. 



281 



another, but rather is a sacrament of our redemption by 
Christ's death ; insomuch that, to such as rightly, wor- 
thily, and with faith receive the same, the bread which we 
break is a partaking of the body of Christ ; and like- 
wise the cnp of blessing is a partaking of the blood of 
Christ. 

Transubstantiation, or the change of the substance of 
bread and wine in the Supper of our Lord, cannot be 
proved by Holy TVrit, but is repugnant to the plain 
words of Scripture, overthroweth the rLatiire of a sacra- 
ment, and hath given occasion to many superstitions. 

The body of Christ is given, taken, and eaten in the 
Supper, only after a heavenly and spiritual manner. 
And the means whereby the body of Christ is received 
and eaten in the Supper, is faith. 

The sacrament of the Lord's Supper was not by 
Christ's ordinance reserved, carried about, lifted up, or 
worshiped. 

XIX. Of both KrOTS. 

The cup of the Lord is not to be denied to the lay 
people ; for both the parts of the Lord's Supper, by 
Christ's ordinance and commandment, ought to be ad- 
ministered to all Christians alike. 

XX. Of the oxe Oblation of Chpjst, fixished upon 
THE Ceoss. 

The offering of Christ, once made, is that perfect re- 
demption, propitiation, and satisfaction for all the sins 
of the whole world, both original and actual ; and there 
is none other satisfaction for sin but that alone. Where- 
fore the sacrifice of masses, in the which it is commonly 



282 CENTENAKr OF AMERICAN METHODISM. 



said that the priest doth offer Christ for the quick and 
the dead, to have remission of pain or guilt, is a blas- 
phemous fable, and dangerous deceit. 

XXI. Of the Marriage of Ministers. 

The ministers of Christ are not commanded by God's 
law either to vow the estate of single life, or to abstain 
from marriage : therefore it is lawful for them, as for all 
other Christians, to marry at their own discretion, as 
they shall judge the same to serve best to godliness. 

XXn. Of the Rites and Ceremonies of Churches. 

It is not necessary that rites and ceremonies should in 
all places be the same, or exactly alike ; for they have 
been always different, and may be changed according to 
the diversity of countries, times, and men's manners, so 
that nothing be ordained against God's word. Whoso- 
ever, through his private judgment, willingly and pur- 
posely doth openly break the rites and ceremonies of the 
Church to which he belongs, which are not repugnant 
to the word of God, and are ordained and approved by 
common authority, ought to be rebuked openly, that 
others may fear to do the like, as one that offendeth 
against the common order of the Church, and woundeth 
the consciences of weak brethren. 

Every particular Church may ordain, change, or abol- 
ish rites and ceremonies, so that all things may be done 
to edification. 

XXIII. Of the Rulers of the United States of 
America. 

The president, the congress, the general assembUes, 
the governors, and the councils of state, as the delegates 



APPENDIX. 



283 



of the people^ are the rulers of the United States of 
America, according to the division of power made to 
them by the Constitution of the United States, and by 
the constitutions of their respective states. And the 
said states are a sovereign and independent nation, and 
ought not to be subject to any foreign jurisdiction.* 

XXIV. Of Cheistiax ]\Iex's Goods. 

The riches and goods of Christians are not common, 
as touching the right, title, and possession of the same, 
as some do falsely boast. Xotwithstanding, every man 
X)ught, of such things as he possesseth, liberally to give 
alms to the poor, according to his ability. 

XXV. Of a Cheistiax Mazn-'s Oath. 

As we confess that vain and rash s^rearing is forbidden 
Christian men by our Lord Jesus Christ and James his 
apostle; so we judge that the Christian religion doth 
not prohibit, but that a man may swear when the magis- 
trate requireth, in a cause of faith and charity, so it be 
done according to the prophet's teaching, in justice, 
judgment, and truth. 

^ As far as it respects civil affairs, we believe it the duty of Chris- 
tians, and especially all Christian ministers, to be subject to the supreme 
authority of the country where they may reside, and to use all lauda- 
ble means to enjoin obedience to the powers that be ; and therefore it 
is expected that all our preachers and people, who may be under the 
British or any other government, will behave themselves as peaceable 
and orderly subjects. 



284 CENTEl^ARY OF AMEEICAN METHODISM. 



No. III. 

CENSUS OF THE IVIETHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH 
m THE UNITED STATES. 



(by states.) FEOM the MESrUTES OF 1864, 



STATES & TERRITORIES. 


Members & 
Probat'rs. 


Preacli- 


Chnrclies. 


Value of Church 
Property. t 


Sunday- 
scbool^. 


S. s. 

Scholars. 


A tIt n Tl Cfl-Q 


249 


1 






1 


60 




4,179 


77 


*82 


S341,087 


112 


5,674 




287 


Q 


1 


2,500 


9 


409 




18,150 


117 


171 


808,000 


169 


13,305 




12,289 


22 


119 


203,225 


125 


8,792 




3,534 


14 


16 


148,700 


18 


2,802 




87,961 


548 


896 


2,147,185 


1,422 


83,914 




86,399 


429 


1 160 


■ 2,134,160 


1,162 


66,984 




37^599 


266 


'271 


'528^525 


'675 


36,105 




5,462 


57 


34 


53,640 


104 


3,907 




2,677 


23 


38 


53,320 


28 


1,695 




22,978 


170 


1981- 


522,987 


268 


16,216 




45,987 


168 


514 


1,128,345 


415 


26,805 




30,185 


230 


226 


1,672,425 


250 


33,195 




31,434 


273 


260 


789,450 


713 


34,841 


Minnesota 


7,681 


89 


70 


94,275 


180 


6,449 




9,259 


63 


79 


199,485 


80 


4,592 




1,829 


27 


12 


23,500 


37 


1,449 




271 


13 


4 


60,700 


10 


388 




10,051 


87 


90 


268,450 


110 


10,225 




45,307 


237 


380 


1,702,625 


514 


43,706 




159,342 


1,101 


l,598i 


5,948,028 


2,2781 


155,031 


Ohio 


121,376 


592 


l,858i 


3,273,031 


1,847 


125,467 




2,629 


30 


30 


66,650 


45 


2,017 




104,765 


619 


1,148 


3,134,710 


1,485 


115,472 




3,225 


20 


20 


185,200 


23 


3,932 




14,444 


135 


1701 


385,375 


208 


13,766 




868 


7 


14 


57,000 


10 


719 


"Washington Territory. . 


278 


9 


4 


10,100 


8 


390 


15,033 


74 


223 


201,475 


174 


8,829 




23,161 


239 


234 


469,980 


540 


26,335 


Total 


908,889 


5,743 


9,9221 


^26,614,083 


13,020i 


853,471 



* Including those on trial and excluding superannuates, t Including parsonages. 



APPEKDIX. 



285 



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Vols, in 
Library, 



286 



CEOTENARY OF AMERICAN METHODISM. 



SEMINARIES, EEMALE COLLEGES, AND ACADEMIES. 



Amenia Seminary 

Baltimore Female College. 
Battle G-round Institute. .. 
Beaver Female Sem. & ) 

Musical Institute j 

Bordentown Female Col... 

Brookville College 

Brunson Institute 

Central Ohio Conf. Sem.... 

Church Hill Institute 

Clark Seminary 

Coolville Seminary 

Cumberland Valley Instit. 

Dansville Seminary 

Danville Academy 

Danville Seminary 

Des Moines Con. Seminary. 

East Genesee Conf. Sem. . . 
East Maine Conf. Seminary 
Eau Claire Wesleyan Sem 

Emory Fem. College 

Epworth Seminary 

Evansville Seminary 



Falley Seminary 

Female Collegiate Institute 
Fort Edward Institute. . 
Ft.PlainSem.&Fem.Col.In. 
Fort Wayne College . . . 



Genesee Wesleyan Sem. 
Gouverneur Wesleyan Sem. 
Grand Prairie Seminary . . 

Hedding Sem'y & Central \ 
Illinois Female College ) 
Hillshorough Female Col.. 

Illinois Female College 

Irving Female College 



Jonesviile Academy 

Maine Wesleyan Semin'y ) 
and Female College . . ) 
Middlet'n In. & Prep. Schl. 
Moore's Hill Collegiate In. . 
Morgantown Fem. Col. In, 

Napa Collegiate Institute.. 
Newbury Seminary and ) 

Female Collegiate In. . j 
N. H.fConf. Sem.& Fem. Col. 
New York Conf. Sem. and ) 

Female Col. Institute . j 
Northwestern Female Col. . 



Amenia, N. Y... 

Baltimore, Md.. 
BattleGr^ndJnd. 

Beaver, Pa 

Bordentown,N.J 
Brookville, Ind 
Point Bluff, Wis. 

Maumee City, 0, 
New Canaan, Ct. 
Aurora, Illinois. 
Coolville, Ohio. . 
Mechanicsb'gjPa 

Dansville, N.Y.. 
Danville, Ind. . 
Danville, III . . 
Indianola, Iowa 

Ovid, N. Y 

Bucksport, Me. , 
Eau Claire, Wis 

Carlisle, Pa 

Epworth, Iowa. 
Evansville, Wis. 

Fulton, N. Y. 
Santa Clara, Cal. 
Ft. Edward, N.Y, 
Fort Plain, N.Y, 
Fort Wayne, Ind. 

Lima, New York 
Gouverneur, N.Y 
Onarga, 111. . . 



Abingdon, 111. .. 
Hillsborough, 0, 

Jacksonville, 111, 
Mechanicsb'h.Pa 

Jonesviile, N. Y. 

Readfield, Maine 

Middletown, Ct. 
Moore's Hill, Ind. 
Morgantown, Va. 

Napa City, Cal.. 
Newbury, Vt — 
Sanb'n Br., N. H. 
Charlot'v'e,N.Y, 
Evanston, 111.. .. 



Principal. 



N. G. Spalding, A.M... 

N. 0. Brooks, LL.D.... 
D. Holmes, D.D 

P. T. Taylor, A.M 

J. H. Brakeley, A.M... 
W. R. Goodwin, A.M. . 
G. W. Case, A.B 

T. M. Searles, A.B 

J. L. Gilder, A.M 

G. W. Quereau, A.M... 

J. P. Spahr 

Oliver Ege & Sons 

Joseph Jones, A.B 

0. H. 'Smith, A.M 

H. L. Dickinson, A.B. . 
Orlando H. Baker, A.M. 

J. J. Brown, A.M 

Jas. B. Crawford, A.M.. 

S. M. White, B.A 

R. D. Chambers, A. M. 
R. W. Keeler, A.M. ... 
H. Colman, A.M 

J. P. Griffin, A.M 

D. Tuthill, A.M 

Joseph E. King, D.D.. 

B. I. Diefendorf, A.M. . 
R. D. Robinson, A.M. . . 

C. W. Bennett, A.M... 
George G. Dains, A.M. 
W. Taplin, A,B 



John T. Dickinson, A.M. 
A. T. Thompson 



Charles Adams, D.D. . . 
A. G. Marlatt, A.M.... 

Fenner E. King, A.M. . 

H. P. Torsey, LL.D... 

Daniel H. Chase, LL.D. 

J. A. Beswick, A.M 

T. Dougherty, A.M.... 

W. S. Turner, A.M.... 
George C. Smith, A.M. 
Henry Lummis, A.M.. 

S. G. Gale, A.M 

L. H. Bugbee, M.A.... 



ruct- 


Students. 










Male. 


Fem. 


' 

7 


121 


96 


12 




120 


6 


iei 


130 


14 


54 


260 


12 




147 


5 


50 


90 


5 


78 


107 


3 


18 


22 


3 


20 


6 


9 


166 


166 


2 


31 


51 


3 


80 




6 


114 


117 


4 


116 


98 


5 


80 


120 


4 


50 


75 


6 


76 


90 


6 


180 


195 


3 


80 


56 


^ 




20 


4 


'60 


70 


6 


98 


152 


10 


239 


235 


9 




67 


16 


368 


197 


5 


103 


107 


9 


67 


106 


10 


248 


366 


6 


107 


178 


6 


149 


87 


5 


100 


101 


10 




210 








5 




72 


o 


56 




9 


754 


845 


8 




89 


6 
6 


45 


55 
80 


5 


45 




8 


189 


242 


7 


116 


146 


9 


90 


70 


7 




100 



APPENDIX. 



287 



SEMINAEIES, FEMALE COLLEGES, AXD ACADEmS.-CONTlNUED. 



Principal. 



Ohio Wesleyan Female Col. Delaware, Ohio.;Park S. Donelson, D.D. 

Olney Male' and Fern. CoL. Olney, Illinois.. Nelson Hawley 

Oneida Conf. Seminary Caze'novia, N. Y.iA. S. Graves, A.M 



Pennington Seminary & ) -n^^ . ,. t -n n ttv^^^t^c \ •\r 
Female Col. Institute. } |Pennmgt n, N. J.,D. C. Knowles, A.M.., 

Perry Academy Perry, IST. Y iM. P. Atkins, A.M. . . 

Pittsburgh Female College; Pittsburgh, Pa..;I. C. Pershing, D.D..., 

Portland Academy ;Portland,Oregon 0. S. Frambes, A.M... 

Providence Conf. Sem. & 1 !^ ^ ^ \ 



Musical Institute. 



E.Greenw'h,E.I J. T. Edwards, A.M. 



Eil3ley Female College jPoultney, Vt. . . . 

Eockport Collegiate Instit. lEockport, Ind... 
Eock Eiver Seminary iMt. Morris, 111.. 



Santiam Academy 

S. Illinois Female College. . 
Spring Mountain Acad'y.. 
Springfield Female College . 
Springfield Wes. Sem'ary ) 
and Female Col. Instit. j 

Springville Academy 

Stockton Female Ins'titute, 



Lebanon, Oregon 
Salem, Illinois.. 
SpringMount.,0. 
Springfield, Ohio. 

Springfield, Yt. . 

Springville, N.Y. 
Stockton, Cal. .. 



Stock^^'ell CoUeg. Institute Stockwell, Ind 



Thomtown Academy. 
Umpqua Academy , . . 



Thomtown, Ind. 

Wilbur, Oregon. 

Waterloo, Wis.. 

Wesley, Ind 

Wilbraham,Mass 
Cincinnati, Ohio 
iWilmington.Del. 
W.Farmingt'n,0 
We?t Piver, Md. 
Centerville, IikI. 
Williani?port,Pa. 
jWiUoughby, 0. 
i Kingston, Pa 



John Newman, D.D. . . 
William S. Hooper, A.M. 
W. T. Harlow, A.M. . . . 

L. T. Woodward, A.M. 
M. H. Corrington, A.M, 

J. B. Selbv 

J. H. Herrou, A.M... 

A. M. Wheeler, A.M. 

David Copeland, A.M. 
H. W. Hunt, A.M. .. 
H. G. Jackson, A.B. . 

0. H. Smith, A.M... 



T. F. Eoyal. , 



Waterloo Academy 

Wesley Academy 

Wesleyan Academy.. 

Wesleyan Female College. 
Wesleyan Female College. . 
Western Eeserve Seminary 
West Eiver Classical Instit. 

Whitewater College 

Wilhamsp't Dickinson Sem. 
Willoughby Collegiate Inst. 
Wyoming Seminary. , 

Xenia Female College ^Xenia, Ohio Iwilliam Smith, A.M. 



A. M. Stephens 

J. H. and A. Orear. . 
Edward Cooke, D.D. 
Eichard S. Eust, D.D 
John Wilson, A.M. . . 
J. M. Leonard, A.M. 
E. G. Chanev, A.M.. 
AV. H. Parnes, A.M.. 

T. MiLchell. D.D 

J. B. Eobinson, A.M. 
Eeuben Nelson, D.D 





Students, 


= ^ 


Male. 


Fem. 


10 




306 


5 


73 


77 


9 


278 


257 


9 


135 


51 


5 


92 


99 


22 




419 


5 


129 


115 


12 


16-i 


168 


11 




208 


5 


*85 


90 


6 


162 


128 


5 


65 


40 


5 




152 


1 


'so 


39 


6 




114 


10 


105 


271 


6 


100 


118 


5 


21 


53 


4 


77 


92 


5 


12-4 


157 


4 


60 


50 


4 


48 


67 




97 


59 


10 


286 


232 


15 




131 


11 




165 


8 


i26 


156 


3 


75 




6 




204 


10 


sil 




9 


73 


isi 


15 


290 


260 


9 


a: 


192 



SuMMAEY.— TwEXTT-THEEE Collegcs, TWO Biblical Institutes, and seventt-seven 
Seminaries. Female Colleges, and Academies. These tables are very deficient. 



THE END. 



JS3 



